Whether or not this untruth was deliberate or a result of the fraudulently ignorant pseudoscholarship is now less relevant, since in 2011 Graf published an article "The Moral and Intellectual Bankruptcy of a Scholar" (about Christian Lindtner, a former denier who saw through the dishonesty of the denier dogma) in which he wrote about Jens Hoffmann's fine book about Aktion 1005:

It suffices to read Jens Hoffmann’s book about the "Aktion 1005”[15] to realize that the whole tale is exclusively based on "eyewitness evidence”, "confessions” and post-war trials where such "eyewitness evidence” and "confessions” formed the sole basis of the accusation.

This is however a blatant lie since Hoffmann cited two German wartime documents mentioning Aktion 1005, both cited by me here.

Fast forward to February 2017, when the fourth (!) revised edition of Jürgen Graf's books Der Holocaust. Die Argumente appeared (Graf wrote an introductory note on 03.02.2017). In it on pp. 104-5 he calls Aktion 1005 "mythical", refers to his and Mattogno's Treblinka book (whose treatment of this particular issue was debunked in 2006, not to mention the 2016 update, see links above), and repeats the above-cited sentence about the history of the operation being based solely on witnesses and court acts, referring specifically to Hoffmann's book:

Graf should know full well about our refutation of this claim and knows full well about the fact that Hoffman's book cited two German wartime documents mentioning Aktion 1005 and that Shmuel Spector's article quoted one such document.

231 comments:

I'm beginning to notice a pattern of behaviour. When making an assertion, it is important to provide your evidence as a counter-point. I'm sure it exists, but you must provide it as context and for foundational purposes.So the few documents that exist indicating a massive operation (1005) to exhume and burn the millions who were shot are valid in their entirety: this we shall assume. The issue is that this assumes the feasibility of millions being shot and killed to begin with (that is, that this assertion can be corroborated after the incident to solidify it as factual). If the documents outlining the reversal of the process are self-admittedly scarce, then this is setting up an unfalsifiable claim substantiated by mere assertions and held as truth even in the face of contrary conclusions (i.e. finding graves with corpses that were passed by, even though the alleged figures don't match). "Of course we can't expect to find the actual death toll and verify/exhume the corpses, they were all burned to a crisp... but we can absolutely be sure of that it occurred because there is substantive evidence, even though, to a large extent, most of the evidence was destroyed". If you come across a document that states I killed and buried 100 people in my backyard (only to go and exhume them after the fact, because this is a very logical choice), then come across another document that states I went back and burned the bodies to cover up my trace, how can you be positive of the initial assertion if it is not substantiated by actual evidence (i.e. when you visit my backyard and only exhume 50)? Unless you take the initial assertion at face value, but that's just setting up an unverifiable claim. It doesn't matter who came up with the plan or who sent the message, the absence of evidence is not presence of evidence.

Is "Joseph" more than another spammer with nothing but generic word salad and shifting of the burden of proof? I doubt it, unless the piece of shit dares join the discussion in the HD forum and voice his specific, exact claims along with his evidence to back them up. Come on, shit for brains: Join an actual discussion instead of driving by with spam.

Insulting the tone of the inquiry over providing information containing substance is not an argument. Try again. The burden of proof is on the person making the assertion. So if party A claims it is some Soviet concoction: where is the proof. Party B claims it's a German concoction: where is the proof. Refer to the backyard-bodies analogy: doesn't matter who claims that I killed the bodies, what matters is that if the evidence doesn't corroborate the assertion, then the assertion must be abandoned. "Fact" presupposes legitimacy of the conclusion. Working backwards from the conclusion; to hell with the scientific method, right?To Sergey, it doesn't matter what Graf says because he's got no real evidence that it's some Soviet concoction. The entire assertion is unfalsifiable. It's the same paradox that arises from documentation existing as hearsay (which is, on one hand, enough to be taken as an authority based on mere assertions devoid of concrete evidence) that supersedes proof (which has been wiped clean, yet the conclusion still persists).

- he's got no real evidence that it's some Soviet concoction-Therefore, it was made by Germans who carried out aktion 1005 in order to record their performance and operation. It happened. Enf of story.- the burden of proof is on the person making the assertion-The burden of proof has been met. Some ignorant piece of shit is asserting that the 1005 documents are something other than they really are. The burden of proof is on him to back his doubt up, else, he can fuck off.

"Therefore, it was made by Germans who carried out aktion 1005 in order to record their performance and operation"That's a black-white fallacy if I've ever seen one. So because it wasn't 'x', it has to by 'y'? The same evidence, that you are alleging they destroyed, is what we are using the reach a conclusion? Absence of evidence=/=presence of evidence."The burden of proof has been met."Only if the actual claim that is made is met with evidence. In this case, that would be exhuming the bodies. What were the figures asserted? I believe it is over one million who were allegedly shot and killed. We can start by exhuming the deceased and pinpointing all the details of death. Getting independent sources to record and publish their finding would be a great way to start. But in the absence of evidence, the assertion is dismissed. Just telling people to eff off when they make the same incredulous fallacies as you (if not 'x', then it must be 'y'; if not 'y', then it must be 'x'!) is telling of the conclusion you wish to reach.

Lots of the usual word salad, but the ignorant piece of shit still hasn't provided the evidence or met the burden of proof.

-absence of evidence=/presence of evidence-There's no "absence of evidence" here. The only absence of evidence is from the ignorant piece of shit, and also Jurgen Graf. At least he admits that the guru Graf is an ignorant piece of shit.

Attacking the tone of the inquiry still doesn't substantiate your claims. Doesn't really make it "more valid" of a point the more you repeat it. Using profanities only demonstrates your inability to keep your emotions in check. If you wish to flaunt your emotional side, I suggest writing in your diary or something. I'll just copy-paste the earlier post, as it seems you did not read it.""The burden of proof has been met."Only if the actual claim that is made is met with evidence. In this case, that would be exhuming the bodies. What were the figures asserted? I believe it is over one million who were allegedly shot and killed. We can start by exhuming the deceased and pinpointing all the details of death. Getting independent sources to record and publish their finding would be a great way to start. But in the absence of evidence, the assertion is dismissed. Just telling people to eff off when they make the same incredulous fallacies as you (if not 'x', then it must be 'y'; if not 'y', then it must be 'x'!) is telling of the conclusion you wish to reach."

Lol. This from an idiot who copied and pasted and REPEATEDhis word salad instead of substantiating his baseless generic doubts. Poor little ignorant piece of shit doesn't have an ounce of self awareness.

Once again, using profanities only demonstrates your inability to restrain your emotions. If you are so fragile that a simple inquiry into the evidence you are basing your worldview on launches you into a fit of "f this and f that", then you must reassess your beliefs. What constitutes a word salad? You mean a sentence? 'Doubt' into absence of evidence doesn't require substantiation. I'm not asserting anything, you are. I'll copy-paste the point once more, it seems to be going over your head every time; perhaps it's the emotions? Not sure, as you seem so confident, it would only follow that the evidence of the million(s) (or however many you assert) would be readily available beyond assertions."""The burden of proof has been met."Only if the actual claim that is made is met with evidence. In this case, that would be exhuming the bodies. What were the figures asserted? I believe it is over one million who were allegedly shot and killed. We can start by exhuming the deceased and pinpointing all the details of death. Getting independent sources to record and publish their finding would be a great way to start. But in the absence of evidence, the assertion is dismissed. Just telling people to eff off when they make the same incredulous fallacies as you (if not 'x', then it must be 'y'; if not 'y', then it must be 'x'!) is telling of the conclusion you wish to reach.""

The dick probably wants to derail from the fact that Denier Guru Jurgen Graf was exposed as a liar, yet again. Sorry, but Graf lied. The sonderkommando 1005 documents are genuine, and so is the supporting photographic, testimonial, documentary and physical evidence for it and the facts it describes. The liar Graf and Joseph the dick have nothing against them.

"The sonderkommando 1005 documents are genuine, and so is the supporting photographic, testimonial, documentary and physical evidence for it and the facts it describes."There something non-emotional. What is the assertion, where is the evidence. For starters, how many bodies were exhumed?

Au contraire, that is the whole point of this post. Graf is not credible not simply on the level of "his interpretations are skewed by his bias" or "he is incompetent", but on the level of basic honesty.

However you seem to concede that Graf doesn't have any evidence. That's a start.

- You (the Dick) seem to concede that Graf doesn't have any evidence -

It's honestly impossible to parse out what the dick is trying to say. Since Graf doesn't have any evidence for his fantasy that the SK1005 documents were "faked by the Soviets", it should obviously follow that they were genuine and created by the Nazis, for the purpose described therein. The Dick doesn't accept this, though, so it seems like he's still trying to have it both ways.

You ask instead, "For starters, how many bodies were exhumed?" But the numbers aren't the theme - elsewhere on this blog the HC group have looked at this question many times - the theme here is Graf's mendacity and evidence against it.

You may wish that Sergey had written about something other than Graf's dishonesty here. But he didn't. Reason doesn't seem to be your forte. You even say that Graf lacks evidence for his claims - then you veer off topic to try scoring random points.

"Joseph, you need to address the totality of evidence that has been posted to this blog for the last 11 years. Just under the tab "graves", for example."How many bodies were exhumed? I thought I asked that already. Point I'm trying to make here is that the amount of bodies that were exhumed is how many can be supported with evidence. It is a non-zero number that I'm trying to get you to answer. But it cannot be an unfalsifiable claim such as "well, it was 'x' but since they were all destroyed and there is no evidence to support it, it is 'y' but I will continue to claim 'x'". Read the backyard analogy I made earlier.

"Au contraire, that is the whole point of this post. Graf is not credible not simply on the level of "his interpretations are skewed by his bias" or "he is incompetent", but on the level of basic honesty."Well, you just took the first part of my quote. My statement in full: To Sergey, it doesn't matter what Graf says because he's got no real evidence that it's some Soviet concoction. The entire assertion is unfalsifiable. It's the same paradox that arises from documentation existing as hearsay (which is, on one hand, enough to be taken as an authority based on mere assertions devoid of concrete evidence) that supersedes proof (which has been wiped clean, yet the conclusion still persists).That was my whole point. If either party is so sure, present the evidence and be done with it instead of making claims that cannot be proven untrue.

"It's honestly impossible to parse out what the dick is trying to say. Since Graf doesn't have any evidence for his fantasy that the SK1005 documents were "faked by the Soviets", it should obviously follow that they were genuine and created by the Nazis, for the purpose described therein."Quite the logical leap. If I didn't write a letter, then it was obviously 'x', right? Ironic that, in the same breath (that was used to berate lack of evidence), you presuppose absolute validity and still stick to the unfalsifiable claims. "If not 'x', then who else?" is not an accurate statement to state, and that applies to both sides of the aisle equally.

"Actually, it does matter. You might re-read the title of this piece, as it announces the theme: "Busted: Jürgen Graf caught lying. Again.""I thought you folk disliked quote-mining and called out others for their hypocrisy. Include the full quote: To Sergey, it doesn't matter what Graf says because he's got no real evidence that it's some Soviet concoction. The entire assertion is unfalsifiable. It's the same paradox that arises from documentation existing as hearsay (which is, on one hand, enough to be taken as an authority based on mere assertions devoid of concrete evidence) that supersedes proof (which has been wiped clean, yet the conclusion still persists).

"Nothing you've posted even deals with the major claim Sergey makes, let alone refutes it."Well, he just admitted that we agree Graf's making leaps of logic, just the same that is made when unfalsifiable claims or black-white fallacies ("if not the Nazis, then the Soviets! If not the Soviets, then the Nazis!": all still supports absolute validity) without dealing with the crux of the matter I asked earlier. We could start off with the question of how many bodies were exhumed. "But the numbers aren't the theme - elsewhere on this blog the HC group have looked at this question many times - the theme here is Graf's mendacity and evidence against it."We've already established that the source of the assertion is not what is important, but the content of the claims. That is what we are trying to find out. The 'numbers' are a theme insofar as they are the main content of the assertion.

"Reason doesn't seem to be your forte. You even say that Graf lacks evidence for his claims - then you veer off topic to try scoring random points."Going from non-arguments such as "Reason doesn't seem to be your forte" then, to quote, "veering off topic" to "well, this isn't really related to the issue because I say so" isn't a great point. Do as I say, not as I do, right? The theme is related to proof about bodies that were exhumed/the orders that set the stage. One side makes claims without evidence: bad! Other side makes claims without evidence: nah, not really related to the topic...

"What "independent source" would you accept?"It isn't on my shoulders to fulfil the burden of proof. I thought the matter is settled. The question should be "what independent sources that we have already recorded should I present to you?"Parties that do not have a horse in the race, generally."As usual, deniers refuse to see what's in front of them."Didn't you just ask to present evidence? That means you have yet to present it. Then you immediately jump and berate me for not accepting evidence... when you just asked what evidence you could present? Just linking to a general list of hundreds of posts related to a plethora of topics (when ours is simple: how many bodies were exhumed) isn't really an argument.

"Nathan the lying Graf's lie is worse than claiming Soviet fakery, he doesn't acknowledge that the documents exist at all!"Yes, and that is bad. But it isn't a "do as I say, not as I do" position that must be taken up: that isn't consistent. My main question is how many bodies were exhumed? I will repost my backyard analogy once more: If you come across a document that states I killed and buried 100 people in my backyard (only to go and exhume them after the fact, because this is a very logical choice), then come across another document that states I went back and burned the bodies to cover up my trace, how can you be positive of the initial assertion if it is not substantiated by actual evidence (i.e. when you visit my backyard and only exhume 50)? Unless you take the initial assertion at face value, but that's just setting up an unverifiable claim. It doesn't matter who came up with the plan or who sent the message, the absence of evidence is not presence of evidence.This is true of any event. You can't just rely on arguments from silence (well, if my alleged victims weren't killed by me, then where else could they have possibly went?) as that assumes guilt before innocence (and isn't a very compelling argument anyways).

Lol, dick. Dr Harrison provided examples (scratching the surface) of the Physical evidence for the Holocaust, and what does the dick do, instead of informing himself about the evidence and asking questions based on them? He acts like a complete Dick. Given his dodging of Dr. Harrison's evidence, we can all see that Joseph the Dick is a spamming troll and not interested in discussing anything. I believe this warrants a ban.

The theme of this blog posting is the existence of documentation about SK1005, and Jurgen Graf's dishonesty. The fucking blog title and the content of the article make that clear. The Dick is either illiterate, or disingenuous and attempting to derail from the expose of Graf's lies. His behaviour indicates that it's the latter. Joseph the dick is nothing but a dick

"The theme of this blog posting is the existence of documentation about SK1005"Glad we agree. So the amount of bodies exhumed (a.k.a. available evidence, something that the other side of the aisle, yourself included, are not operating outside of) is what can be asserted as "reality", having occurred, the fact of the matter (so long as you can fulfil the assertions with some independent analysis). Not unfalsifiable claims. Otherwise they are regarded as absolute truth on faith alone, as there is no way to undo the actions and actually test to see how many were killed. To claim otherwise is an argument from silence, which isn't very compelling and presumes guilt before innocence. Graf is wrong because he has no proof, but don't act holier-than-thou when the lack of evidence turns back to you. I asked this so many posts ago and you've been diverting: how many bodies were exhumed? Put simply, if you didn't exhume the 'x' millions that are claimed, you can't claim that because you don't have actual evidence of the deceased. Well, you can claim it, but it just makes it that much more funny when you berate others for not having evidence or making unfalsifiable claims.

Also, I'm not the one making the assertion, I am asking your your evidence; seems like you are doing everything you can to not answer a simple question: how many bodies were exhumed (a.k.a. present available evidence).

Joseph, if you are seriously suggesting that no historical mass killing can be proven unless we can count all the bodies, then you are making history impossible to do, and also nullifying any possibility of debate. So I cannot see what your purpose is, except total negationism.

"Joseph, if you are seriously suggesting that no historical mass killing can be proven unless we can count all the bodies, then you are making history impossible to do, and also nullifying any possibility of debate. So I cannot see what your purpose is, except total negationism."And on what basis can you arrive that such mass killings occur if you cannot find the bodies? We don't put people on trial based on "educated guesses" and hearsay. There either is evidence or there isn't. Also, history is not something that is "done". I'm talking about gathering evidence. I'm not speaking about "every single body". I'm asking you for evidence of your claim: how many bodies were exhumed? There is a difference between ten thousand and one hundred thousand. Wasn't there a mass grave of thirty of so thousand bodies that were successfully exhumed in Babi Yar, if I remember correctly? That is an example of evidence, for thirty or so (however many it happened to be) thousand, not millions (unless you have evidence). What nullifies debate is unfalsifiable conclusions and conspiracy theories that are to be taken on faith/at face value. My 'purpose' is getting evidence of your claim and doing away with your 'holier-than-thou' mindset of hypocrisy. "Negationism" presumes guilt before innocence/that the evidence is readily available for the claim. If I am in the process of asking FOR such evidence, how can I be accused of being a negationist (if it is rooted in "denial", which, in itself, is an a priori statement hinting towards self-evidence when that could not be further from the case)?

Many of the Einsatzgruppen killers were put on trial based on German documents and their own admissions, so this "hearsay" straw man is simply false.

It is simply a fantasy of your own making to presume that proof of genocide is done by physically counting bodies. Archaeology uses many other techniques to estimate grave capacity and such estimates have been used to verify eyewitness statements.

You will need to read the info posted on this site if you want to debate those techniques, otherwise you are just trolling using a false goalpost that no scientist uses in the field.

"Many of the Einsatzgruppen killers were put on trial based on German documents and their own admissions, so this "hearsay" straw man is simply false."But that isn't substantive evidence for the existence of the bodies, as in their actual locations. "Many" does not mean all. It must be unanimous, otherwise there is room for alternatives. Like I said, the documents themselves need substantiation. "It is simply a fantasy of your own making to presume that proof of genocide is done by physically counting bodies."Yeah, because then the assertion is unfalsifiable. Exhuming the bodies is the way to get evidence for mass graves."Archaeology uses many other techniques to estimate grave capacity and such estimates have been used to verify eyewitness statements."That's great that that is a method: so where are the graves? If they can locate them and estimate sizes, then the graves have had their location determined. All that is left now is to exhume the bodies. Why operate on 'eyewitness' when we have the absolute evidence (the body) determined? We are using the faith of the eyewitness to be reliable/an authority on the situation. Comparatively speaking, the actual bodies are much better proof of the claim. "You will need to read the info posted on this site if you want to debate those techniques, otherwise you are just trolling using a false goalpost that no scientist uses in the field."Well, that's an appeal to authority. I take it you are not a scientist, but that is irrelevant as the truth operates independently from the source (only the content matters). The real false goalpost is using unfalsifiable claims. 'We know 'x' died this way and at this time, but we can never exhume the bodies because that isn't real evidence, even though archaeologists have located the graves and calculated their volume.' If you have left no room to be proven wrong by means of presenting the substantive evidence (in the form of exhuming the bodies and ascertaining the proof for the death toll), then you are setting yourself and your worldview up for success, no matter the conclusion. That isn't an argument.

Lol, what a disingenuous dick. Dr. Harrison provided this very same information upthread, and the dick dodged it instead of studying the evidence and actually stating his doubts and why it doesn't satisfy his irrelevant standards. Sergey also provided a book talking about SK1005 and its historical/evidenciary context, and in his other troll, Roberto provided the evidence corroborating the EMs. Joseph the Dick is a troll who wants to derail the thread.

- You will need to read the info posted on this site if you want to debate those techniques, otherwise you are just trolling using a false goalpost that no scientist uses in the field.-Dr. Harrison, since the Dick dodged your info regarding exhumed mass graves, this is definitely the case. Joseph the Dick is a dishonest troll and adds no value to this discussion."Joseph" is spelledD-I-C-K

"Dr. Harrison provided this very same information upthread"Well, he actually just conveniently lowered the standard of evidence when it came to affirming his own worldview and attacked the concept of exhuming bodies, opting to take eyewitness testimony instead. "Sergey also provided a book talking about SK1005"Great, so how many bodies were exhumed again? Just keep on making emotional diversions, though, I'm sure that will substantiate your claims."Roberto provided the evidence corroborating the EMs"Presupposing validity isn't an argument. How many bodies were exhumed?"your info regarding exhumed mass graves"There was no evidence provided. He stated that it wasn't enough and that they're pipe dreams (exhuming bodies, that is).

>> Include the full quote: To Sergey, it doesn't matter what Graf says because he's got no real evidence that it's some Soviet concoction. The entire assertion is unfalsifiable. It's the same paradox that arises from documentation existing as hearsay

No. You are misrepresenting my point and what Sergey wrote. He clearly stated, “Graf told an untruth about there being no documentary evidence for Aktion 1005.” Then he showed the Graf is wrong about this.

What you mean by documentation existing as hearsay is unintelligible. Faitelson’s book among others includes examples of German sources referring to SK 1005. http://www.skepticforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=39&t=25822&p=498470#p498470

>> The 'numbers' are a theme insofar as they are the main content of the assertion.

Again, twisting a short piece to your purposes - and then “critiquing” it for failing to prove what it didn’t set out to prove - is inept and dishonest. Your flailing about on this, whilst ignoring what I see Jon Harrison has linked to you on this blog doesn’t make any case at all. It is mere assertion and unconvincing no matter how vehement you may be.

>> The theme is related to proof about bodies that were exhumed/the orders that set the stage.

The theme is Graf’s dishonesty about documentation existing for SK 1005, not a full review of evidence for mass shootings in the occupied east. Your reply to Jon Harrison is empty. Posting about x’s and y’s and this, that and the other instead of the articles he linked you to is no way to deal with what those articles show. They aren’t about a plethora of topics but as you asked for about the evidence for the mass shootings/graves. The evidence for the mass shooting, by the way, is not reducible to the number of bodies exhumed.

Statistical-What you mean by documentation existing as hearsay is unintelligible.-

Lol, not only a dick, but an ignorant dick. Documents are absolutely not hearsay; even the US federal rules of evidence specificially states that "Records of a recorded activity" or "Public Records" are exceptions to the Hearsay rule. The dick pulled this stipulation out of his own ignorant ass, instead of basing it on actual known laws and rules. What a dick.

"I'm not playing the Dick's game. Everyone except for the Dick has provided evidence already."Self-admitted absence of evidence is not presence of evidence. You won't play "my game", yet you still respond emotionally each time. And continue to respond.

"No. You are misrepresenting my point and what Sergey wrote. He clearly stated, “Graf told an untruth about there being no documentary evidence for Aktion 1005.” Then he showed the Graf is wrong about this."Yes, because the absence of actual evidence is not the presence of evidence (assertions without proof are just that: assertions). It's all sunshine and roses until the same skeptic lens is orientated towards your worldview. Like I mentioned earlier, do as I say..."What you mean by documentation existing as hearsay is unintelligible. Faitelson’s book among others includes examples of German sources referring to SK 1005. http://www.skepticforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=39&t=25822&p=498470#p498470"Excellent, at least we've moved past the emotional drivel. In the book, how many bodies are discussed to have been exhumed? As in, how many graves were located, examined, and the deceased examined? Earlier, it was mentioned that "probably two-thirds" of the graves remained intact. Of the 'x' millions alleged to have been killed, that's a lot of excellent evidence just lying around. You must have access to such evidence given the gravity of the claim/how confident you are. I ask, for I think the sixth or seventh time now, how many bodies were exhumed? "Again, twisting a short piece to your purposes - and then “critiquing” it for failing to prove what it didn’t set out to prove - is inept and dishonest. Your flailing about on this, whilst ignoring what I see Jon Harrison has linked to you on this blog doesn’t make any case at all. It is mere assertion and unconvincing no matter how vehement you may be."Pot calling the kettle black. I'm not the one making any assertions, I am not stating "Soviets killed 'x' many millions of people and we know this because of the messages sent between them", or anything of that nature. I am asking for your evidence (specifically figures that corroborate how many were killed vs. how many were exhumed). The theme still remains discussing and critiquing POVs on 1005 and what it entailed. I am inquiring about the other side of the aisle (namely, yours) to see what substantive evidence you present. "The theme is Graf’s dishonesty about documentation existing for SK 1005, not a full review of evidence for mass shootings in the occupied east."Yes, and now that this has been established, we fulfil the void left with a valid assertion backed by evidence. Just making claims with nothing serving for comparison isn't a great practice when discussing source material or proving claims. The theme also includes the consequences of Graf being incorrect; namely, that the opposite is truth. Which is the crux of the matter: presupposing validity before undergoing analysis (in the form of exhumation of bodies to corroborate said reports).

"Your reply to Jon Harrison is empty. Posting about x’s and y’s and this, that and the other instead of the articles he linked you to is no way to deal with what those articles show. They aren’t about a plethora of topics but as you asked for about the evidence for the mass shootings/graves. The evidence for the mass shooting, by the way, is not reducible to the number of bodies exhumed."They actually are about a multitude of topics. The link only includes "graves"; other tabs are also associated. In fact, one of the links (What "Revisionism" is all about – A Chat with Fredrick Töben (Part 2)) includes the tag "Rwanda". The answer is, in fact, a simple one. It only takes about one sentence, really. In total, how many bodies have been successfully attributed and exhumed? It's a number. Evidence for mass shootings is actually wholly ascertained by finding the bodies of the deceased. Conducting an investigation on the basis of nothing except for the bodies, scene of the crimes, etc. If there is some telegram sent indicating that 'x' many millions were shot to death, we find the bodies. Otherwise they can just plead the Fifth and you can't try somebody while assuming guilt before innocence, unless you conveniently lower the bar for evidence when your worldview is in question. I'm not stating that it's just the bodies and that's that: there are more steps involved in proving guilt, one of which includes exhuming the bodies in question.

If Joseph wants to know "how many bodies were exhumed" ( and therefore cremated too) then surely the only evidence that would satisfy him would be Nazi records of such, ie a tally or list made during the operation.

If this is so then he must ask himself how likely it is that the Nazis would have actually counted these decomposing heaps of dead bodies after the graves were exhumed and before they cremated them. I mean, is there any evidence of the same administrative procedure being carried out at the AR camps when those bodies were exhumed too ? Not that I am aware of . IIRC none of the witnesses, Jewish or Nazi mentioned any recording or counting procedure of any kind during exhumation. So Joseph then has to be honest with himself and ask how likely it would be if these documents existed in the first place. Surely the objective of the Nazis during this operation was to remove the incriminating evidence, not to count it !!!

Now if such documents did not exist then what we are left with as the only other available evidence are the EM reports, other correspondence and testimonies, plus the non existence of these Jews after the reported shootings. So any logically minded, sane individual would use these items of evidence instead. End of story.

Basically, it is highly likely that the only evidence that would satisfy Joseph does not actually exist and never has existed, so why is he asking for it ?**

** Note, that is if he is asking for it. I don't know what other evidence he would accept as being proof of how many bodies were exhumed ( other than video footage, which again is extremely unlikely to have been made by the Nazis)

I stand corrected on the issue of Nazis counting the bodies from the EG killings . In Sergey's article 'From the vocabulary of Aktion 1005' he notes testimonies of Nazis who admitted the numbers were reported , using euphemisms such as 'cloud height' !!!

So, looks like these records must have been destroyed, just like the AR records.

"If Joseph wants to know "how many bodies were exhumed" ( and therefore cremated too) then surely the only evidence that would satisfy him would be Nazi records of such, ie a tally or list made during the operation."Well, that isn't really an independent inquiry into the matter. It can be a starting point, but such evidence should come from an unbiased party. Also, evidence of the dead bodies doesn't necessarily have to come from the suspect. "If this is so then he must ask himself how likely it is that the Nazis would have actually counted these decomposing heaps of dead bodies after the graves were exhumed and before they cremated them."I thought the stereotype for the Germans was that they were fastidious. Those two statements are equally likely to be truthful."I mean, is there any evidence of the same administrative procedure being carried out at the AR camps when those bodies were exhumed too ? Not that I am aware of . IIRC none of the witnesses, Jewish or Nazi mentioned any recording or counting procedure of any kind during exhumation."Then we conclude that, in the absence of evidence, there can be no claims on behalf of evidence for mass graves that cannot be substantively proven. Just because the Nazis didn't record the mass graves/bodies that went into them doesn't mean any inquiry after the fact will be invalid; in fact, if the investigation is independent and unbiased, then the opposite is true (and is actually the proper process to confirm any statements like 'x million were killed in these graves and here is the evidence for the graves/ the deceased). "Surely the objective of the Nazis during this operation was to remove the incriminating evidence, not to count it !!!"You misunderstand me: I wasn't referencing any "counting procedure" during the destruction of the evidence, but after the crimes were committed (to confirm the validity of documents referencing the graves)."Now if such documents did not exist then what we are left with as the only other available evidence are the EM reports, other correspondence and testimonies, plus the non existence of these Jews after the reported shootings."That presumes that all the evidence we have is all the evidence that is available, which is not true. Earlier it was mentioned that two-thirds of the graves were left intact, which would mean that the same documents speaking of said graves can be confirmed (instead of relying on circular arguments, arguments from silence, and using the documents as final authorities on the matter) by exhuming the bodies. "Well, if not 'x', must be 'y' by virtue of 'x' not being true" is not an argument."So any logically minded, sane individual would use these items of evidence instead. End of story."There are plenty of cases when people thought we had all the evidence and everybody always dismissed "naysayers" with such fervour as being "illogical given the evidence". In short, every generation thinks they are the best. "Basically, it is highly likely that the only evidence that would satisfy Joseph does not actually exist and never has existed, so why is he asking for it ?"Then how do you know any actual death toll? Because they spoke of it in documents? Such documents must be substantiated with proof, confirming what is being claimed in the documents themselves. How do we know the assertions in the documents to be true? "Note, that is if he is asking for it. I don't know what other evidence he would accept as being proof of how many bodies were exhumed"Independent investigation after the war to confirm the contents of said documents. Video evidence is not necessary, but it is excellent evidence (given the time, not really feasible). I'm speaking more so in regards to investigative reports exhuming the bodies and confirming the death tolls alleged, proving their validity.

Dr. Harison, Sergey, StatMech and Das Prussian have all provided evidence. I've explained why Joseph's assertions and standards are completely irrelevant. The only one repeating himself and not making his points "more valid" is Joseph.

Jurgen Graf has lied yet again. The documentation for SK1005 exists and are genuine beyond doubt. Graf lied, and Joseph's pitiful attempts to derail from that are not convincing anyone.

"In Sergey's article 'From the vocabulary of Aktion 1005' he notes testimonies of Nazis who admitted the numbers were reported , using euphemisms such as 'cloud height'"Euphemisms and innuendo aren't great standards of evidence and pale in comparison to investigations that can smash such euphemisms and confirm what they were referencing. Also, the presumption that specific euphemisms actually mean 'x, y, and z' presume guilt before innocence. When I say "twigs and berries", it is your interpretation that I am some pervert actually describing a penis. That can be summarily destroyed by actually showing what I was speaking of (either a penis or literally a stick and two berries). Like I mentioned before, they raise logical suspicion, but they are not pieces of evidence in and of themselves.

"Dr. Harison, Sergey, StatMech and Das Prussian have all provided evidence."Not substantive evidence. Nobody has actually put forth a figure of how many bodies were exhumed, confirming the contents of the documents they cite. Suspicion=/=guilt. An alibi is created, but if you wish to cast guilt solely on the basis of an alibi and "we saw it, it's true" instead of actually analyzing what all the other pieces of evidence point towards (namely, the mass graves and the bodies inside of them), then that isn't making a substantive argument, just operating on lowering the bar of evidence for your own worldview. "The documentation for SK1005 exists and are genuine beyond doubt. Graf lied, and Joseph's pitiful attempts to derail from that are not convincing anyone."The point of contention is not if the document is German or Soviet because it has already been established that the source of the claim does not dictate the validity of a claim (in this case, both Germans and Soviets had a horse in the race but that isn't just cause to absolutely dismiss what is asserted: it is dismissed because of the fact that it is only an assertion). What matters is if the claim is substantiated by evidence (in this case, the mass graves and the bodies inside of them).

Dr. Harison, Sergey, StatMech and Das Prussian have all provided evidence. I've explained why Joseph's assertions and standards are completely irrelevant. The only one repeating himself and not making his points "more valid" is Joseph.

Jurgen Graf has lied yet again. The documentation for SK1005 exists and are genuine beyond doubt. Graf lied, and Joseph's pitiful attempts to derail from that are not convincing anyone.

I find it ironic that in a post berating an argumentum ad populum (in this case, just endlessly repeating the same claim without actually responding to the counter-point), you conduct yourself in a manner completely opposed to what you accuse others of. I guess it isn't really ironic because irony involves the unexpected; what more do you expect from an emotionally charged person who cannot stop making insults? Even Rob had to moderate your comments. Yes, genetic fallacies and assuming assertions=self-evident truths are wrong on both sides of the aisle. But your entire post is a holier-than-thou bit, so what is there to expect?

Except it's not an assertion. The Sk1005 documents and the EMs you so desperately try to dismiss are records prepared by government/state agencies to record their operations, meant for internal correspondence only. Handwaving government records as "assertions" makes as much sense as handwaving corporate financial reports or government directives or laws. An "assertion" is something someone says about someone or something else. Like Roberto said in a different discussion, these documents were made by people about themselves to record and report their activities. That's not an assertion. The "assertion" is your baseless "assertion" that these files are something other than what they were. You have yet to substantiate this assertion, thus, it deserves to be dismissed.Idiot.

"Except it's not an assertion. The Sk1005 documents and the EMs you so desperately try to dismiss are records prepared by government/state agencies to record their operations, meant for internal correspondence only."So assertions. Glad we agree. Instead of operating off of assertions on behalf 'x', why not investigate 'x' directly to fulfil the contents of the documents?"Like Roberto said in a different discussion, these documents were made by people about themselves to record and report their activities. That's not an assertion."By definition, it is (a confident and forceful statement of fact or belief). But a result must be replicated in order to be regarded as truth. Assertions must be replicated and proven to be the factual (as is claimed), otherwise they are dismissed. The activities that the documents reference can be found in order to replicate what the documents allege. All pieces of the documents point towards mass graves and the bodies within them, so we examine the contents of such claims made in order to verify them. "Joseph is trying to derail from Graf's lies."Genetic fallacies and assuming documents are self-evident/do not require followup investigations are fallacious on both ends of the aisle.

-(a confident and forceful statement of fact or belief)-Which describes your silly little attempts to cast doubt on official government records. Unfortunately, government records intended to record or report operations by state agencies don't fall into this category. End of story.

-Assertions must be replicated and proven to be the factual (as is claimed), otherwise they are dismissed.-You have yet to replicate or substantiate that these documents/government records are anything other than what they are, thus, your assertions are dismissed and deserve to be dismissed.

Jurgen Graf lied. Joseph is trying to derail from the exposure of Graf's lies. End of story. Whether he likes it or not, others here have provided evidence. The only one not to substantiate his claims is Joseph.

"Which describes your silly little attempts to cast doubt on official government records."Which are substantiated by? What are they referencing? Soviet officials can send telegrams speaking of massive claims, but if the claims themselves are beyond investigation or scrutiny, then they are unfalsifiable, which isn't an argument. "You have yet to replicate or substantiate that these documents/government records are anything other than what they are, thus, your assertions are dismissed and deserve to be dismissed."Presuming that circular arguments are logically valid (claims are proven true because of the documents and the documents are proven true because of the claims within the documents...) and that the burden of proof is on my shoulders. The point of contention is centred around if the documents are truthful. Not the source. The burden of proof is to replicate the conclusion of the documents; however, even this presumes that mere documentation in and of itself is self-evident of the conclusion, which is not true. Like I said above, I can send a letter outlining my intention to commit murder, but that is not proof that I am guilty of murder (just by virtue of my writing of it). You need to prove that I am guilty of what the document alleges, otherwise the claim is unfalsifiable and presumes guilt before innocence. "Joseph is trying to derail from the exposure of Graf's lies."Yeah, I've already said this before and the other posters picked up on it: dishonesty and lowering the bar of evidence/genetic fallacies are wrong on both sides of the aisle. "The only one not to substantiate his claims is Joseph."I'm not making an assertion, I am inquiring about the basis from which you make your conclusions and how you know it to be true without actually leading up and investigating the main case being referenced. You are the one making the assertions.

-claims are proven true because of the documents and the documents are proven true because of the claims within the documents-

The claims are proven true because of the documents. No one says that the claims prove the content of the documents. Straw men, and dumb. Even for you.

-Like I said above, I can send a letter outlining my intention to commit murder, but that is not proof that I am guilty of murder (just by virtue of my writing of it). -Lol, so the Germans wrote records of their killing actions for no reason other than shits and giggles? That's your claim? You really are an idiot. And some random idiot "sending a letter about the 'intent' to kill" is the same as a state/government agency recording their operations. Hilarious.

- You need to prove that I am guilty of what the document alleges, otherwise the claim is unfalsifiable and presumes guilt before innocence. --The documents don't "allege" anything. They record actions carried out by the recorder, as surely as ledgers record accounting or financial transactions, or receipts record purchases. The "presumption of innocence", like Roberto said, only applies to claims made by accusers against suspects, and not the statements or records prepared by persons about themselves and their actions.Unless you're saying that the Germans wrote them for shits and giggles, or that someone fabricated the documentary evidence about them. That's the only assertion here, and you have yet to support it.

- Yeah, I've already said this before and the other posters picked up on it: -The other posters have lost patience with you because you're not following your own advice and have repeated your inane claims over and over. I'm starting to lose my patience, too.

-I'm not making an assertion, I am inquiring about the basis from which you make your conclusions and how you know it to be true without actually leading up and investigating the main case being referenced. You are the one making the assertions.-Lol, no one made any assertions until this idiot showed up. Sergey's OP was about how Jurgen Graf lied about the existence of the SK1005 reports. The idiot derailed the thread by out of the blue asserting that these reports are something other than what they are. What an idiot.

"The claims are proven true because of the documents."Circular argument. "No one says that the claims prove the content of the documents."You just did. You said that the claims within the documents prove the validity of the documents. Self-evident truths that aren't actually self-evident then become unfalsifiable. "Lol, so the Germans wrote records of their killing actions for no reason other than shits and giggles?"I'm not inquiring about their purpose: obviously the most logical reason is because of mass murder. But that isn't proof in and of itself. "And some random idiot "sending a letter about the 'intent' to kill" is the same as a state/government agency recording their operations."They both require investigative reports to confirm the contents. Otherwise you cannot assume guilt before innocence, or use unfalsifiable statements that leave no room for physical examination of the claims. "The documents don't "allege" anything. They record actions carried out by the recorder, as surely as ledgers record accounting or financial transactions, or receipts record purchases."Yes, and a ledger assumes that the transaction went through, but you'd need to prove it first. You are assuming the documentation of mass murder is equivalent to physical evidence (graves, exhuming bodies) FOR mass murder. "The "presumption of innocence", like Roberto said, only applies to claims made by accusers against suspects, and not the statements or records prepared by persons about themselves and their actions."They are suspects in this case. They are not guilty just because there are documents outlining their activities: one must first prove the activities to be truthful (by exhuming the bodies and observing the graves) first."Unless you're saying that the Germans wrote them for shits and giggles, or that someone fabricated the documentary evidence about them."Nope, not arguing why it was written (most logical answer is murder) or that it's necessarily fake: I am pointing out that it is not enough to call somebody guilty. All documentation references mass graves/murder that occurred, so examine the claim by exhuming the bodies. The bodies that you exhume are what you can claim was murdered. Anything outside of what is exhumed cannot be claimed because the documentation leads to nothing: it was either destroyed or over-exaggerated. For the bodies that were destroyed (about one-third, from your own claims), then the absence of evidence does not equate to the presence of evidence. Can't claim they were murdered if there is no archaeological evidence to support the claim. It's the same reason why Babi Yar is confirmed (suspicion raised by documents, validated with actual investigations into the claims to confirm the graves) and other claims are not.

It appears all Joseph wants is "an independent" investigation. As if this would produce a number for the corpses that were cremated ! As if this would be required anyway in a region where there was no doubt whatsoever what the Nazis were doing.

And then imagine the arguments that would arise over how 'independent' the investigators would be. Considering the large percentage of revisionists who believe the Jews control everything , you can well imagine them dismissing basically everyone.

The EG reports have recorded hundreds of thousands of murders. Documents and testimonies prove that "operation 1005" existed and they used code words to cover up the disposal of incriminating evidence. So unless you can put forward credible evidence that proves the EG reports are forged or inaccurate , that all the witnesses were lying. Or put forward an explanation as to why the Nazis would be genuinely measuring the height of clouds in Ukraine, then your just wasting everybody's time, and probably only on here as some 'professional arguer' trying to score points as if participating in some sixth-form style debating society.

"It appears all Joseph wants is "an independent" investigation. As if this would produce a number for the corpses that were cremated"No, I mentioned, from the source your side of the aisle used, that if two-thirds of the graves are intact, given uniform distribution, we should receive a healthy figure aligned with what is being claimed."As if this would be required anyway in a region where there was no doubt whatsoever what the Nazis were doing."Presumption of guilt before innocence is not an argument."And then imagine the arguments that would arise over how 'independent' the investigators would be."I repeat myself: The point of contention is not if the document is German or Soviet because it has already been established that the source of the claim does not dictate the validity of a claim (in this case, both Germans and Soviets had a horse in the race but that isn't just cause to absolutely dismiss what is asserted: it is dismissed because of the fact that it is only an assertion). What matters is if the claim is substantiated by evidence (in this case, the mass graves and the bodies inside of them)."The EG reports have recorded hundreds of thousands of murders."So hundreds of thousands are what can be asserted, not millions. "Documents and testimonies prove that "operation 1005" existed and they used code words to cover up the disposal of incriminating evidence."We already assumed that this operation will be valid, but it doesn't prove the figures that are being asserted in and of itself. Follow up on the claim being put forth and validate it by exhuming the deceased."So unless you can put forward credible evidence that proves the EG reports are forged or inaccurate , that all the witnesses were lying"This assumes they were telling the truth to begin with, and that by the virtue of their testimony, everything they state is valid. It's an argumentum ad populum to believe the more people believe in something, the more "truthful" it is. "Or put forward an explanation as to why the Nazis would be genuinely measuring the height of clouds in Ukraine, then your just wasting everybody's time, and probably only on here as some 'professional arguer' trying to score points as if participating in some sixth-form style debating society."Euphemisms are not, in and of themselves, truthful or the authority of evidence. Attacking the tone of my points isn't an argument either: just substantiate your claims and show the "hundreds of thousands" being exhumed. Just the same as pictures of dead people aren't substantive points on the execution method/suspect in question, documents being passed around are not substantive pieces of evidence (i.e. self-evident to begin with). Otherwise, that is making an unfalsifiable claim that cannot ever be proven incorrect.

-Nope, not arguing why it was written (most logical answer is murder) or that it's necessarily fake: I am pointing out that it is not enough to call somebody guilty. All documentation references mass graves/murder that occurred, so examine the claim by exhuming the bodies. The bodies that you exhume are what you can claim was murdered. Anything outside of what is exhumed cannot be claimed because the documentation leads to nothing: it was either destroyed or over-exaggerated. -

HAHAHAHAHAHAH!He doesn't argue it was faked, then he dismisses them as "over exaggerated". What a clown! By the way, this (exaggeration) is the only assertion in this "discussion". (I'd call it what it is: a derail)Prove it.

-You are assuming the documentation of mass murder is equivalent to physical evidence (graves, exhuming bodies) FOR mass murder. -And you're assuming that "physical evidence" is the only way to "prove" mass murder. Roberto already explained it, but I'll repeat it: that's not how it works, sunshine. Pretty much every law in every country on Earth accepts that >anything< that helps prove a fact is evidence and admissible, which was why German and US courts had no trouble convicting Nazis for war crimes. I'll take their procedures over the idiot's, thank you very much.

-Otherwise, that is making an unfalsifiable claim that cannot ever be proven incorrect.-Actually, it can be proven incorrect by proving that the documents were faked or as you say "exaggerated". You've admitted that Graf can't prove they were faked, therefore, they are genuine. Unless you can prove otherwise.

-Just the same as pictures of dead people aren't substantive points on the execution method/suspect in question, documents being passed around are not substantive pieces of evidence (i.e. self-evident to begin with). -Lol, how are bodies supposed to be different from "pictures of dead people". Since it's 70 years after the fact, decomposition and the elements pretty much guarantee that "pictures of dead people" are all that remains of the bodies.This just shows Joseph's methodology and intellectual dishonesty. Nothing's going to convince him: he'll keep on raising the goalposts and asking for more and more "proof" no matter how many times it's given to him. Give me a fucking break.

-The claims are proven true because of the documents."Circular argument. "No one says that the claims prove the content of the documents."You just did. You said that the claims within the documents prove the validity of the documents-

You really are an idiot. No one said that that the "claims" of Mass murder prove the authenticity or validity of the documents. The German authorship proves that, unless you can demonstrate that it was not written by the German authors.

This is what a real "circular argument" looks like."Mass murder happened because of documents. Why are they true, because they record mass murder"No one has even said anything remotely close to this. Only a complete idiot (you) couls come up with this kind of "reasoning". Idiot.

@Joseph:"What "independent source" would you accept?""It isn't on my shoulders to fulfil the burden of proof."

Yes, it is. You are refuting documented history that aligns with testimony. If you are saying otherwise then the burden of proof is yours.

"I thought the matter is settled."

Then what is the issue?

The question should be "what independent sources that we have already recorded should I present to you?""Parties that do not have a horse in the race, generally."

And who might they be?You realize that it is researchers and historians that are looking into this, right? Are they independent enough for you?

"As usual, deniers refuse to see what's in front of them.""Didn't you just ask to present evidence? That means you have yet to present it. Then you immediately jump and berate me for not accepting evidence... when you just asked what evidence you could present?"

Well then, what evidence do you have?

"Just linking to a general list of hundreds of posts related to a plethora of topics (when ours is simple: how many bodies were exhumed) isn't really an argument."

No, I'm giving you an option to join us to not only discuss this but other topics. Do you not have an opinion on anything else?

JKelly, given Joseph's dodging and frequent misrepresentation, I'm starting to realize that he's not interested in debate or discussion. He just wants to ditract from Sergey's expose on Jurgen Graf's lie.

>> Yes, because the absence of actual evidence is not the presence of evidence

This is not the situation we’re discussing. On the one hand we have Graf saying that there is no documentary evidence for SK 1005 and that “the whole tale is exclusively based on ‘eyewitness evidence.’”

On the other we have evidence, not absence of evidence, in the form of documents referring to SK 1005 and its work.

It is really not so complicated as you try making it.

>> Excellent, at least we've moved past the emotional drivel. In the book, how many bodies are discussed to have been exhumed? As in, how many graves were located, examined, and the deceased examined?

Not the point I made and cited Faitelson’s book to support.

>> Evidence for mass shootings is actually wholly ascertained by finding the bodies of the deceased.

This is not remotely the case, especially when surviving records show that the bodies were destroyed. Evidence for these crimes comes in different forms and is not exclusively what you want it to be.

>> now that this has been established

What has been established is that Graf lied in various ways. Is that what you agree has been established?

The Black Death 'allegedly' killed 75-200 million people.Until they are all exhumed and counted,I won't believe it happened.If the bodies were burnt,I really won't believe it.Too convenient.And seeing no 'eyewitness' can be produced,I'm sure it didn't happen.

"He doesn't argue it was faked, then he dismisses them as "over exaggerated". What a clown! By the way, this (exaggeration) is the only assertion in this "discussion". (I'd call it what it is: a derail)Prove it."Anything outside of what is exhumed is, by definition, an exaggeration (deviating from the truth). If you exhume x but claim y, you are not being honest. Or you can just assume everything that is asserted is beyond any investigation into the claims when it agrees with your worldview. "And you're assuming that "physical evidence" is the only way to "prove" mass murder."Not only, but much more substantive. Can't find the bodies of millions and relying on arguments from silence are not compelling, only for people who wish to conveniently lower the bar of evidence to "substantiate" their conspiracy theories. "Roberto already explained it, but I'll repeat it: that's not how it works, sunshine. Pretty much every law in every country on Earth accepts that >anything< that helps prove a fact is evidence and admissible, which was why German and US courts had no trouble convicting Nazis for war crimes. I'll take their procedures over the idiot's, thank you very much."Really? I don't remember Rob using insults to prove his point, he didn't seem emotionally charged like you. Glossing past the argumentum ad populum, not all pieces of evidence are created equal. There is a difference between testimony and video evidence. Any evidence, even evidence that is later discovered to be perjurious, is acceptable? Your definition needs some caveats, "sunshine". If all of your "super duper compelling evidence" (same evidence that can be used to prove God exists) points to one case (mass graves and the bodies within them), and you have access to that central point, not investigating the central point demonstrates an aversion to evidence (if committed willingly). How many bodies were exhumed? Whatever number you get, that's all that was actually substantiated on behalf of the documents.

"Actually, it can be proven incorrect by proving that the documents were faked or as you say "exaggerated"."Presupposing any form of documentation by the authorities is the ultimate piece of evidence, instead of actually investigating the claims made by said documents to confirm their validity/authenticity=not an argument. Soviets had many 'compelling show trials' with "very compelling evidence". But if you cannot prove the guilt beyond reasonable doubt, then you don't have a case. If you can't follow up the claims made by the documentation, then the claims are not substantiated. And if you claim that the Western powers used that as a basis for their judgements, then you really highlight why article 19 was included as part of the Nuremberg trials."No one said that that the "claims" of Mass murder prove the authenticity or validity of the documents. The German authorship proves that, unless you can demonstrate that it was not written by the German authors."Again, lowering the bar of evidence when your worldview is in question. It's a circular argument. It's also the reverse: the documents show the claims raised by them (mass murder) are legitimate: we know this because the claims in the document are self-evident by virtue of belonging to (insert genetic fallacy), not the actual content of the claims."This is what a real "circular argument" looks like."Mass murder happened because of documents. Why are they true, because they record mass murder"No one has even said anything remotely close to this. Only a complete idiot (you) couls come up with this kind of "reasoning". Idiot."I will quote you directly: the German authorship [of the] documents shows the claims raised by them (mass murder) are legitimate". The validity of the documents and the claims raised by them are proven only because they are German? The source of the claim is not what matters, but the content of the claim. Just keep on jumping from fallacy to fallacy instead of actually answering how many were exhumed (i.e. substantive evidence of the claims raised by the documents).

"Yes, it is. You are refuting documented history that aligns with testimony."Refutation relies on disproving a claim that has been solidified as fact: you are shifting the burden of proof when you use "refute", as the point of contention is the investigation of the document's claim to validate them. There is no solidified fact to 'refute'. "Then what is the issue?"Sorry, include the full quote. Not sure what this is referencing."And who might they be?You realize that it is researchers and historians that are looking into this, right? Are they independent enough for you?"An independent source is one that doesn't have a horse in the race, like the nations involved, although even that is not evidence that they are absolutely wrong (could be right or wrong: depends on the content of the claim). What is the figure that the researchers/archaeologists/etc. arrived at, in regards to substantiating the figures raised in the documents alleging mass murder (by means of analyzing said graves/exhumation)?"Well then, what evidence do you have?"Again, poisoning the well: denial assumes guilt before innocence and solidified fact when the entire point is to source any investigation into the claims raised by the death tolls mentioned in the documents. "Didn't you just ask to present evidence? That means you have yet to present it. Then you immediately jump and berate me for not accepting evidence... when you just asked what evidence you could present?""No, I'm giving you an option to join us to not only discuss this but other topics. Do you not have an opinion on anything else?"Why are you diverting from the point of contention? You've made a claim that has no investigative reports done to follow up (namely, sourcing documents and unfalsifiable statements on behalf of said document that cannot be proven right or wrong, appealing to the document as an authority/substantive evidence, and averting any inquiry into providing proof on behalf of said document in terms of the death toll stated and the physical evidence substantiating it). Stick to the topic at-hand.

-Glossing past the argumentum ad populum, not all pieces of evidence are created equal.-

The practices of actual courts staffed by actual legal professionals has more weight than the demands of some chump on the internet (you). That's not "argumentum ad populum". That's common sense. Sorry, their word outweighs yours.

Not all pieces of evidence are created equal, which is why ALL evidence (not just physical evidence) needs to be assesed and taken into accoint, instead of your hilarious obsession with "physical evidence".

- Any evidence, even evidence that is later discovered to be perjurious, is acceptable?-

1) cite examples of "perjurious" evidence used in any trial relating to the Holocaust.2) prove that documents are "perjurious"

And, lol at some idiot baselessly dismissing historical documents as "forgeries" or "exaggerations" without any evidence, accusing others of "conspiracy theories".

"JKelly, given Joseph's dodging and frequent misrepresentation, I'm starting to realize that he's not interested in debate or discussion. He just wants to ditract from Sergey's expose on Jurgen Graf's lie."Jurgen made a genetic fallacy when he used the sole (and unproven) case that it was a Soviet document, and you follow the same fallacious reasoning when you reveal that the document is validated by its source (I quote: "German authorship") over its claims (analyzing graves in question/exhuming bodies). Burden of proof works both ways, but keep on crying and being emotional about it.

"This is not the situation we’re discussing. On the one hand we have Graf saying that there is no documentary evidence for SK 1005 and that “the whole tale is exclusively based on ‘eyewitness evidence.’”

On the other we have evidence, not absence of evidence, in the form of documents referring to SK 1005 and its work."But that point was not raised in regards to the document itself: the absence of evidence was raised in regards to the inquiry into the graves alleged by said documents, which are NOT invalidated/validated by a source but the content of the claims, and exhuming the bodies. If the document alleges x million and you find y million, continuing to assert y million is using the absence of evidence as presence of evidence.

"Not the point I made and cited Faitelson’s book to support."Yeah, your book (Faitelson’s book among others includes examples of German sources referring to SK 1005.) is only concerned about said document. It is not validated/invalidated by a mere source, but the content of the claims. In regards to the document, what evidence has been found that corroborates the death toll put forth (namely, how many bodies have been exhumed)?

"This is not remotely the case, especially when surviving records show that the bodies were destroyed. Evidence for these crimes comes in different forms and is not exclusively what you want it to be."Sergey quoted that "probably two-thirds" of the graves were left intact: most of the evidence wasn't destroyed, it isn't as exclusive as you want it to be.The evidence that you are purporting as final authority are enough to raise reasonable suspicion, but just because everybody claims to have seen something occur does not mean that thing occurred without actually following up with the reasonable suspicion to validate its claims."What has been established is that Graf lied in various ways. Is that what you agree has been established?"A while back, keep up. Both sides of the aisle are guilty of genetic fallacies. One says it was Soviet, so it is invalidated. The other says it is German, so it is validated. Neither side actually investigates the claims raised by the document to corroborate them; both are making unfalsifiable claims when they implicitly claim self-evidence of the document.

-"Actually, it can be proven incorrect by proving that the documents were faked or as you say "exaggerated"."Presupposing any form of documentation by the authorities is the ultimate piece of evidence, instead of actually investigating the claims made by said documents to confirm their validity/authenticity=not an argument.-

Again, the documents don't claim anything. They record the actions carried out by the recorders. You can keep repeating your ignorant bullshit all you want, but that doesn't make it true.

-I will quote you directly: the German authorship [of the] documents shows the claims raised by them (mass murder) are legitimate". The validity of the documents and the claims raised by them are proven only because they are German?-Quote me directly while putting words in my mouth? What I said was that documents are authentic and genuine - i.e. Not forgeries- because the German authorship is beyond doubt. They prove mass murder because by their very nature, they recorded the act of mass murder. Two different lines of thought. Not a circular argument by any stretch of the word.You really make yourself look dumber and dumber.

"The Black Death 'allegedly' killed 75-200 million people.Until they are all exhumed and counted,I won't believe it happened.If the bodies were burnt,I really won't believe it.Too convenient.And seeing no 'eyewitness' can be produced,I'm sure it didn't happen."Notice the discrepancy in the death toll? That is not by coincidence, as ascertaining the legitimate death toll is incredibly difficult given the scope of human development during the Medieval ages. No real incentive to count as the finale is not equivalent (wars versus plagues are vastly different scenarios, especially considering the gravity of the black death). Why don't you follow up with the footnotes and take a look at the death toll: I'll give you a penny for every time they use the word "estimated" or guesses along those lines. Twentieth century Europe is not equivalent to the Medieval ages, the timelines are completely different. That's all we DO have, though. The bodies are long gone and we are stuck with educated guesses. We know that it is a non-zero number and we knows that it was in the millions (only because the phrasing/terminology used references "empty towns"; add them up and take a lower limit of the major cities it struck and you have a number that, at the very minimum, breaks the millions). Also, I'm not making the hyperbole of exhuming EVERY body, but when it is self-admitted that "two-thirds" of the graves were intact, some more intellectual honesty and investigative work is expected. The last sentence is incorrect, as I don't put enough faith into eyewitness testimony and appeals to the people as you do, otherwise I'd believe in God. Also, that's the entire point I'm raising on the third sentence: the conclusion is unfalsifiable. "We know 'x' millions died because of the documents which are proven by the source not the content, but any investigation into the content is unreliable because the graves were destroyed, so the true figure is lost and we can never know, except for my claim that it is absolute truth beyond debate." At best, it's an educated guess. The Rwandan genocide is more than an educated guess precisely because there was a great effort to exhume the bodies (http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/21681392.2015.1028206). Even the Black Death, centuries removed from our time, has had the claims made on its behalf (save for the death toll) verified (https://www.awesomestories.com/asset/view/The-Black-Death-Scientific-Evidence-of-Plague).

-And if you claim that the Western powers used that as a basis for their judgements, then you really highlight why article 19 was included as part of the Nuremberg trials.-

Fuck, not this bullshit again."Technical rules of evidence", i.e. Detailed rules like the US Federal rules of evidence, are a strictly American concept, unique to the US because of the Nature of the Jury as the ultimate trier of fact. Given the fact that the Jury is usually composed of lay people not familiar with the law, Formal rules of evidence are intended to prevent them from giving too much Weight to certain types of evidence. European courts don't have these, because the Judge - an expert of the law- acts as the ultimate trier of fact and is assumed to understand the law and be capable of analyzing evidence (something the idiot in the thread is clearly incapable of). Article 19 was intended to make it easier on European Judges and lawyers in the IMT, who were not familiar with American style rules of evidence and not be encumbered by them. Nothing more.

This idiot makes a big stink about Europeans not following American style lawys, and yet dodges the fact that, contrary to his fantasies, these American style laws do consider those pesky documents as being evidence.

"Again, the documents don't claim anything. They record the actions carried out by the recorders. You can keep repeating your ignorant bullshit all you want, but that doesn't make it true. "Yes they do. The claim is that the records are verified with evidence. The recordings are not self-evident, otherwise that's just another unfalsifiable statement. Lol, 'ignorant bullshit'. That one of those word salads you were talking about earlier. Funny how you can demonstrate such poor debate tactics and underhanded methods of conversation, yet hold others to different standards. At least your buddies are a little bit more honest. "Quote me directly while putting words in my mouth? What I said was that documents are authentic and genuine - i.e. Not forgeries- because the German authorship is beyond doubt."Yeah, so the crux of the matter is their German authorship which proves the authenticity of the recordings. Let me rephrase this: I, myself, record the killings I am said to have committed in my backyard: the killings are proven to be true because I wrote the document. That is a textbook genetic fallacy, assuming a claim (or "recording" which claims to have occurred) is truthful/false based on the source over the content of the claims. "They prove mass murder because by their very nature, they recorded the act of mass murder."My recordings of my actions are not proof that said actions occurred. You can record your daily life in your diary, but that is not self-evident and if I claim that it is the truth solely based on the fact that you wrote it, I'm not actually presenting substantive evidence proving what you wrote in your diary.

-Quote me directly while putting words in my mouth? What I said was that documents are authentic and genuine - i.e. Not forgeries- because the German authorship is beyond doubt."Yeah, so the crux of the matter is their German authorship which proves the authenticity of the recordings. Let me rephrase this: I, myself, record the killings I am said to have committed in my backyard: the killings are proven to be true because I wrote the document. -

For fuck's sake, all I said was that they were not forgeries because they were written by German authorities. I did not say the "claims" were true because they were written by Germans. Work on your reading comprehension. Are you actually saying that something being written by you isn't proof that it was written by you? That's how you're starting to sound.

And your "letter" bullshit is as irrelevant as it was since the last time you pulled it out of your ass. Your "letter" and "diary" analogies are irrelevant, since we are talking about a government recording its own actions as part of record keeping.

"Formal rules of evidence are intended to prevent them from giving too much Weight to certain types of evidence."I quote you quoting Rob: Roberto already explained it, but I'll repeat it: that's not how it works, sunshine. Pretty much every law in every country on Earth accepts that >anything< that helps prove a fact is evidence and admissibleEither the formal rules of evidence are applicable in virtually every nation on Earth, or "anything that helps prove fact is evidence". What of the second half (t shall adopt and apply to the greatest possible extent expeditious and nontechnical procedure, and shall admit any evidence which it deems to be of probative value)? The nontechnical procedure is whose system? The one that values some "evidence" more than the rest? Evidence is evidence is evidence: it either is or it isn't. There is circumstantial evidence, which raises probable suspicion but isn't as compelling.Also, which "European nations"? Many countries have jury trials, like Ireland, Greece, the UK, France...The phrase "formal rules of evidence" does not refer to the those who analyze the evidence, but the evidence itself. It states what it means: that the 'formal rules of evidence' are not applicable. I'm not familiar with "the formal rules of evidence" ever referencing "jurors not existing". We can see the "formal rules of evidence" falling apart when Nikitchenko demands for harsher sentences, or even the death sentence for Hess.

-What has been established is that Graf lied in various ways. Is that what you agree has been established?"A while back, keep up. Both sides of the aisle are guilty of genetic fallacies. One says it was Soviet, so it is invalidated. The other says it is German, so it is validated. Neither side actually investigates the claims raised by the document to corroborate them; both are making unfalsifiable claims when they implicitly claim self-evidence of the document.-

Graf never said it was a "soviet forgery". There was nothing in the original article about Graf claiming it was a soviet forgery. These files exist and Graf lied about their existence, just as you are lying now about this basic claim, among other things.

"For fuck's sake, all I said was that they were not forgeries because they were written by German authorities."Genetic fallacy, as the validity/invalidity of a claim is not ascertained by the source. It doesn't matter if it was a forgery (plagiarized) if the content of the recordings is verified and found to be true. "Are you actually saying that something being written by you isn't proof that it was written by you?"Irony is not found to register for you, I see ('work on your reading comprehension' when you misrepresent "I, myself, record the killings I am said to have committed in my backyard: the killings are proven to be true because I wrote the document" into meaning "I, myself, record the killings I am said to have committed in my backyard: the killings are proven to be written by me because I wrote the document"). "Your "letter" and "diary" analogies are irrelevant, since we are talking about a government recording its own actions as part of record keeping."I'll take a page out of Rob's book: by who? You? Not an argument. The analogy is a comparison, not an equivalence, so there's no need to deliberately inflate it into a strawman. In principle, it is referencing the act of recording an event. We can change it to an exchange between me and my neighbour, or people writing of me.

Also, the question was not whether or not the Soviets or Germans "made" the Sk1005 documents. The question was whether or not they were a "fabricated" record of corpse incineration, or a GENUINE record of corpse incineration. Joseph's "genetic fallacy" bullshit is a straw man. The provenance, and not the "origin" was under discussion. IOTW Joseph is an illiterate moron.

-I quote you quoting Rob: Roberto already explained it, but I'll repeat it: that's not how it works, sunshine. Pretty much every law in every country on Earth accepts that >anything< that helps prove a fact is evidence and admissibleEither the formal rules of evidence are applicable in virtually every nation on Earth, or "anything that helps prove fact is evidence-They're not mutually exclusive. US style formal rules of evidence are guidelines, nothing more.

-The phrase "formal rules of evidence" does not refer to the those who analyze the evidence, but the evidence itself.-In the real world, formal rules of evidence like the US federal rules of evidence describe exactly that. Sorry.

- We can see the "formal rules of evidence" falling apart when Nikitchenko demands for harsher sentences, or even the death sentence for Hess.-Sentences demanded by the prosecution are not relevant to Rules of evidence.

-The analogy is a comparison, not an equivalence, so there's no need to deliberately inflate it into a strawman. In principle, it is referencing the act of recording an event. We can change it to an exchange between me and my neighbour, or people writing of me.-You missed the point. None of these are comparable to a government recording its own actions as part of record keeping.

-I'll take a page out of Rob's book: by who? You? -

That applied and still apllies to your irrelevant demands and standards, not followed by actual justice systems, despitenyour frequent appeals to the law you don't even understand.

"Refutation relies on disproving a claim that has been solidified as fact: you are shifting the burden of proof when you use "refute", as the point of contention is the investigation of the document's claim to validate them. There is no solidified fact to 'refute'."

Except that not only do we have the documentation mentioned by Hans plus the testimony regarding the unearthing and destruction of the bodies, we have corresponding documents and testimony regarding the mass murder of Jews by bullets in the Baltics and the USSR. We start with the mass shootings and end with the destruction of the bodies. Not only did Action 1005 encompass the shooting victims but it also extended to the death camps of Chelmno and the Action Reinhard Camps. So, like most deniers, you only look at the part, not the whole.In fact, the first mention of 1005 that I came across that exposed this to the world was in 1944. An SD defector in Switzerland described this process in some detail.

"And who might they be?You realize that it is researchers and historians that are looking into this, right? Are they independent enough for you?""An independent source is one that doesn't have a horse in the race, like the nations involved,"

So, if the US government decided to excavate a Civil War battle site do they need to bring in a team of Swiss historians and archeologists in order to provide an unbiased report on what they found? That's ridiculous.

"although even that is not evidence that they are absolutely wrong (could be right or wrong: depends on the content of the claim)."

What do you mean by "content of the claim?" Is that a claim you don't agree with?

"What is the figure that the researchers/archaeologists/etc. arrived at, in regards to substantiating the figures raised in the documents alleging mass murder (by means of analyzing said graves/exhumation)?"

Perhaps you should spend some quality time exploring this blog, the authors post many such things regarding the investigations of sites. Also, you can also do a Google search on the subject.

"Well then, what evidence do you have?"

"Again, poisoning the well: "

LOLPlease.

"denial assumes guilt before innocence and solidified fact"

Again, we are talking about established fact. 70 plus years of investigation and research lead us to the truth. Action 1005 is documented by testimony and a paper trail. The Soviets, Poles and others investigated mass killing sites (the ones 1005 didn't reach) and found bodies. I'm not going to spoon feed you, read about it yourself. Or, you can come to Skeptics and we can discuss it there. I can point you to threads regarding this particular issue and others.

"when the entire point is to source any investigation into the claims raised by the death tolls mentioned in the documents."

Again, my advice is to look into the issue yourself. It's hard to present evidence in this form.

"Didn't you just ask to present evidence? That means you have yet to present it. Then you immediately jump and berate me for not accepting evidence... when you just asked what evidence you could present?""No, I'm giving you an option to join us to not only discuss this but other topics. Do you not have an opinion on anything else?"

"Why are you diverting from the point of contention? You've made a claim that has no investigative reports done to follow up (namely, sourcing documents and unfalsifiable statements on behalf of said document that cannot be proven right or wrong, appealing to the document as an authority/substantive evidence, and averting any inquiry into providing proof on behalf of said document in terms of the death toll stated and the physical evidence substantiating it). Stick to the topic at-hand."

I'm going to quote from David Wolfe's commentary about article 19. As I said, despite Joseph's hollering, there's really nothing sinister or suspicious about it.

-The purpose of rules of evidence in the American system is to keep evidence away from the jury that is deemed to be of insufficient weight such that the risk that the jury will over-weigh the evidence supersedes its presumably limited evidentiary value.

In America, we have a very suspicious attitude about juries in that we tend to think that they are unable to separate the evidentiary wheat from the evidentiary chaff, so to speak. This, however, is not a universal notion. The counter-veiling view is that you just dump "everything but the kitchen sink" on the jury and let them sort it out. This view pre-supposes a high degree of faith in the ability of typical jurors to assign proper weight to individual pieces of evidence. Which view is "right" or "wrong" doesn't really matter for purposes of this discussion.

In the American system, the judge in a jury trial acts as a "gatekeeper" for the jury, in that he or she screens the evidence so that only the most reliable evidence is considered by the jury. Other evidence may have some probative value, but its value is deemed insufficient to permit consideration by a lay jury.

When no jury is present, however, the gatekeeper function is irrelevant. The judge in either case must decide the admissibility of the evidence, but in a bench (non-jury) trial, the "bell has already been rung" the moment the judge, as ultimate trier of fact, sees the evidence in the context of considering whether or not it should be admitted. Consequently, there is no further purpose to exclude the evidence, because any "prejudicial" impact it may have has already been incurred by virtue of the fact that the judge who is deciding the case has already seen it. And, of course, judges (rightly or wrongly), tend to believe that they are immune to the tendency to be prejudiced and over or under weigh evidence that they see as more possible with jurors. Consequently, in bench trials, almost all evidence is let in, and in some cases, it's literally all evidence.Finally, I would object to the denier argument that refusing to exclude evidence in a criminal trial makes the proceeding some kind of "kangeroo court" wherein justice is necessarily miscarried. The fact is, no evidence rules, or lax evidence rules, cut both ways in any given judicial proceeding. They can benefit the defense as much as the prosecution-

Joseph's hollering about article 19 shows he doesn't know shit about the law and is talking out of his ass. Just another attempt to derail Graf's lie. Article 19 was harmless. End of story, no more derails about this.

"The question was whether or not they were a "fabricated" record of corpse incineration, or a GENUINE record of corpse incineration."My original inquiry was into the content of the recordings (i.e. to corroborate what is stated). The validity of the documents is not ascertained by the source (see: genetic fallacy)."Joseph's "genetic fallacy" bullshit is a straw man. The provenance, and not the "origin" was under discussion."Provenance is defined as the place of origin. Nice try warping words to get back to square 1, I suggest you improve your vocabulary. It would be a strawman if I misrepresented your claim, but you are primarily concerned with the origin of the claims over the content corroborating what is stated."They're not mutually exclusive. US style formal rules of evidence are guidelines, nothing more."'Formal' doesn't entail a mere guideline, it states rules, like you mention. Like I mentioned: "Either the formal rules of evidence are applicable in virtually every nation on Earth, or "anything that helps prove fact is evidence-"."Sentences demanded by the prosecution are not relevant to Rules of evidence."Yes, they conveniently bypass them (as technicalities) as is stated. Assessing evidence and coming to a conclusion is now not equivalent to the rules of assessing the evidence. Gotchya."None of these are comparable to a government recording its own actions as part of record keeping. "In principle, both are centred around the act of recording an event."That applied and still apllies to your irrelevant demands and standards, not followed by actual justice systems, despitenyour frequent appeals to the law you don't even understand."So asking to know how many bodies were exhumed is irrelevant and not actually substantive evidence? At least you admit the aversion to obtaining evidence in order to corroborate statements or recordings upfront.

I've said all that there is to say about article 19. David Wolfe has explained exactly what Rules of evidence are. No more derails about this.

-So asking to know how many bodies were exhumed is irrelevant and not actually substantive evidence? At least you admit the aversion to obtaining evidence in order to corroborate statements or recordings upfront.-Yep. It's irrelevant. Like JKelly excellently explained, you look at the whole. Not the parts. Bodies do not "validate" documents. Documents, photographs of a killing action, statements from the perpetrators, bystanders and victims, and yes, bodies (regardless of how many were exhumed) all point to one inescapable conclusion: mass murder. This is what courts do and did, what researchers do and what everyone except Joseph does. Irrelevant demands and standards.

"Except that not only do we have the documentation mentioned by Hans plus the testimony regarding the unearthing and destruction of the bodies, we have corresponding documents and testimony regarding the mass murder of Jews by bullets in the Baltics and the USSR. We start with the mass shootings and end with the destruction of the bodies. Not only did Action 1005 encompass the shooting victims but it also extended to the death camps of Chelmno and the Action Reinhard Camps."You have just described an unfalsifiable statement. There is no way to actually investigate the statements made in the recordings and the testimony because all the evidence was destroyed. Like I mentioned, absence of evidence=/=presence of evidence. Applies to Graf equally to you. Testimonial evidence is not concrete and absolute, especially when there is an opportunity to follow up with the graves in question (read Sergey's quote, 'probably two-thirds were left intact') are mostly intact (allowing follow-up to corroborate the statements made). Documents describing activities is not substantive proof that they actually occurred. If 'x' many millions died, where are the bodies? How many were exhumed? Extend this to the other camps, too. How many of the bodies were destroyed? Surely, it is a non-zero number as you know of it because there are pictures of deceased (but let's not be foolish enough to assume the cause of death from a picture). How many of the bodies were exhumed and analyzed post-war, in the East and the West? "So, like most deniers, you only look at the part, not the whole."Poisoning the well by presuming truth outright. Testimony also proves the presence of God. There are many documents describing the actions of God and what he has claimed to have said. Many more people claim to have seen him, too. Yeah, but God decided to disappear and never return after the last person totally saw him, but we can still totally believe this to be truth."In fact, the first mention of 1005 that I came across that exposed this to the world was in 1944. An SD defector in Switzerland described this process in some detail."Yet you cannot produce a number of bodies exhumed to see how many were killed: instead, you opt for arguments from silence.

"So, if the US government decided to excavate a Civil War battle site do they need to bring in a team of Swiss historians and archeologists in order to provide an unbiased report on what they found?"I thought you folk hated quotemining? There was a comma at the end of the quote. The full quote: An independent source is one that doesn't have a horse in the race, like the nations involved, although even that is not evidence that they are absolutely wrong (could be right or wrong: depends on the content of the claim). What is the figure that the researchers/archaeologists/etc. arrived at, in regards to substantiating the figures raised in the documents alleging mass murder (by means of analyzing said graves/exhumation)?Some advanced intellectual dishonesty there, as that statement alone (without context) is a genetic fallacy, kind of like stating truth is determined and records verified simply because of a source."What do you mean by "content of the claim?" Is that a claim you don't agree with?"No, the content of the claim. So if I claim that I did 'x', we actually analyze the content of the claim (to see if I actually did 'x'), not taking claims at face value just because the source is aligned with your worldview, or opposed to it."Again, we are talking about established fact. 70 plus years of investigation and research lead us to the truth. Action 1005 is documented by testimony and a paper trail"At least you admit to lowering the standard of evidence when it comes to statements supporting your worldview. Documents are not self-evident merely off of a source: they are affirmed by investigations to corroborate what is stated."The Soviets, Poles and others investigated mass killing sites (the ones 1005 didn't reach) and found bodies. I'm not going to spoon feed you, read about it yourself."Lol, you are so lazy that you cannot even substantiate your own claims. It's a simple answer, yet you took the time to post paragraphs upon paragraphs: how many did the Soviets/Poles/etc. exhume? "Again, my advice is to look into the issue yourself. It's hard to present evidence in this form."Deliberately making it hard on yourself isn't an argument. It is one number: how many were exhumed post-war by all the efforts? One thousand? Ten thousand? One hundred thousand? One million? Ten million? How many? "So, my option is to sit here and spoon feed you? Why?"Ah, I see, so you opt to make unsubstantiated claims with no evidence. Maybe websites like "skeptics" aren't right for people who post lengthy blogposts, but shy away from typing out a simple number and copy-pasting links.

-"And who might they be?You realize that it is researchers and historians that are looking into this, right? Are they independent enough for you?""An independent source is one that doesn't have a horse in the race, like the nations involved,"-None of the Nations involved had "a horse in the race". The Soviets downplayed Nazi killings of the Jews because they wanted to sell a narrative of capitalist fascists killing Soviets. Ditto, the Soviet Controlled Poles, who at the time wanted to present Poland as the martyr among nations. The Americans wanted nothing to do with the Holocaust and actually hired the people who killed the Jews and protected them from Prosecution. The Germans did the same thing, which makes Joseph's hollering about IMT utterly irrelevant. Since the Nations involved had no horse in the race, they are "independent" by Joseph's definition. This means all the evidence they produced was genuine and beyond doubt. This is beyond Joseph's inane comparison of government record keeping with his fantasy letters: these are governments acting against their known interest. This eliminates any possibility of forgery or fraud, sorry.

-"So, like most deniers, you only look at the part, not the whole."Poisoning the well by presuming truth outright. Testimony also proves the presence of God. There are many documents describing the actions of God and what he has claimed to have said. Many more people claim to have seen him, too. Yeah, but God decided to disappear and never return after the last person totally saw him, but we can still totally believe this to be truth.-Lol, no there aren't. There's only the bible. And only an idiot like yourself would compare things in the natural world (shootings and corpse burnings) to divine miracles. The bible is really nothing compared to actual historical documents/records made by the people who actually performed them.God himself also never spoke on his own behalf, but Nazis did.

"The purpose of rules of evidence in the American system is to keep evidence away from the jury that is deemed to be of insufficient weight such that the risk that the jury will over-weigh the evidence supersedes its presumably limited evidentiary value."Yeah, like pesky inquiries about how many were actually exhumed to corroborate the statements made. "In America, we have a very suspicious attitude about juries in that we tend to think that they are unable to separate the evidentiary wheat from the evidentiary chaff, so to speak."What? Who thinks this? The entire purpose for a jury is that they are a sample size of society: a jury of your peers, so to speak. Only Wolfe has such conveniently placed doubt for a jury. Next, we'll be hearing about doubt towards prosecutors who are asking the "wrong questions". Juries are fine and not unique to the American judicial system."This view pre-supposes a high degree of faith in the ability of typical jurors to assign proper weight to individual pieces of evidence. Which view is "right" or "wrong" doesn't really matter for purposes of this discussion."As opposed to honest and fair judges like Nikitchenko. You can find a bad apple in every batch, that isn't an argument."In the American system, the judge in a jury trial acts as a "gatekeeper" for the jury, in that he or she screens the evidence so that only the most reliable evidence is considered by the jury."I think I have a good name for these kinds of judges, like a Ministry of Truth. Has a nice ring to it."Consequently, there is no further purpose to exclude the evidence, because any "prejudicial" impact it may have has already been incurred by virtue of the fact that the judge who is deciding the case has already seen it."So genetic fallacies presuming validity/invalidity based on, say, German authorship, are summarily dismissed. Sounds like a great court system!"Finally, I would object to the denier argument that refusing to exclude evidence in a criminal trial makes the proceeding some kind of "kangeroo court" wherein justice is necessarily miscarried. The fact is, no evidence rules, or lax evidence rules, cut both ways in any given judicial proceeding. They can benefit the defense as much as the prosecution-"Point of a court is not to 'benefit' either party. There is a difference between being able to present evidence, then have it refuted (ability to present evidence in the first place) and not being allowed that freedom at all. No fair court system allows willful/deliberate omissions of evidence (defined as factual information) from a court: like Rob states, "Pretty much every law in every country on Earth accepts that >anything< that helps prove a fact is evidence and admissible". That which does not help the case (just stating 2+2=4, which is factual, but not evidence for/against a specific case) must still be allowed to be presented (then dismissed AFTER the fact). Pieces of evidence like inquiring about the figures of the exhumed.

JKelly and I have explained to you how science and history actually work. Review the evidence JKelly provided and come back when you have an actual argumeny against the evidentiary convergence for the Holocaust and not your silly dismissals. You say there's an inconsistency between records and the Physical evidence? Prove it.

-Point of a court is not to 'benefit' either party. -Lol. Yes it is. That's the whole point of the Justice system. It's the underlying principle behind the presumption of innocence. Joseph is just digging himself deeper with his derail about article 19. I'm done with this idiot.

"Bodies do not "validate" documents. Documents, photographs of a killing action, statements from the perpetrators, bystanders and victims, and yes, bodies (regardless of how many were exhumed) all point to one inescapable conclusion: mass murder."Either bodies do not validate statements made by documents, or "and yes, bodies" is true. You just refuted yourself in the same post. Documents pointing to mass graves require investigating the graves to see the bodies within. Bystanders have claimed many things in the past, does not make them true by default, one must first investigate what is being stated and follow up to prove the validity of the case-in-point. Photographs of the deceased? How many? Do they show millions upon millions? Because that's what is asserted. One photograph of a killing action is not proof of millions. "None of the Nations involved had "a horse in the race". The Soviets downplayed Nazi killings of the Jews because they wanted to sell a narrative of capitalist fascists killing Soviets. Ditto, the Soviet Controlled Poles, who at the time wanted to present Poland as the martyr among nations. The Americans wanted nothing to do with the Holocaust and actually hired the people who killed the Jews and protected them from Prosecution. The Germans did the same thing, which makes Joseph's hollering about IMT utterly irrelevant. "The first two nations, you just admitted, had a horse in the race. Allies did benefit from casting post-war narratives of evil on the defeated, as does any nation after it succeeds in order to present the "we fought the good fight" mentality and dismiss themselves of guilt.But that, by itself, does not dismiss a claim (i.e. its source alone): what is asserted and how is it proven to be true? Millions died? Okay, where are the bodies? "The Germans did the same thing, which makes Joseph's hollering about IMT utterly irrelevant."Tu quoque, also I never said they didn't: it is expected that warring nations distribute such claims. "Since the Nations involved had no horse in the race"Refuting your own posts in the same blogpost again, I see. Soviets and Poles, you admit, had horses. Just for the same reason the Germans did what you claim, so, too, did the Brits, and the Americans. You can try and assume that the trials were unbiased and based in evidence, but when you can't even present evidence for the locations/bodies exhumed of the millions who are claimed to have been killed, you aren't making any actual arguments. "Since the Nations involved had no horse in the race, they are "independent" by Joseph's definition. This means all the evidence they produced was genuine and beyond doubt."Documents are not self-evident and the content of a claim is not determined by its source. The independent point I raised had a caveat you deliberately omit, which was that the claim may be true for the same reason that a broken clock is right twice a day. "Lol, no there aren't. There's only the bible."There has been more than one religion founded."And only an idiot like yourself would compare things in the natural world (shootings and corpse burnings) to divine miracles"Both are accepted because lots of testimony exists, documents of said instances exist, "foremost authorities" have given their input, etc. "God himself also never spoke on his own behalf"Pretty sure the story goes that God spoke to Moses, and that's true because Moses documented it and documents are self-evident especially because Moses wrote it down...

"JKelly and I have explained to you how science and history actually work. Review the evidence JKelly provided and come back when you have an actual argumeny against the evidentiary convergence for the Holocaust and not your silly dismissals. You say there's an inconsistency between records and the Physical evidence? Prove it."Science works when conclusions are capable of being replicated, there is absolute evidence refuting any critiques of a theory, and not resorting to unfalsifiable claims. History aligns itself with what actually happened/claims with evidence. Evidence does not "converge towards" truth: it is truth. If you assert millions died, how many bodies were exhumed? Instead of relying on self-evident documents and genetic fallacies, try and answer the simple question asked about eighty posts ago: in one number, how many bodies were ever found/successfully exhumed? So simple to answer if you are so confident, but this great aversion to evidence is telling of your conspiracy theories. I'm not saying there is an inconsistency between documents and physical evidence: I'm asking for the physical evidence to be presented proving the statements within the document."Lol. Yes it is."At least you admit you want biased courts benefitting either party by disallowing the presentation of evidence."It's the underlying principle behind the presumption of innocence."Which does not include benefitting another party because of appeals to authority."I'm done with this idiot."Seems like you really can't contain your emotions? God forbid you get into a formal debate, you'll just call opposition a dummy poophead for not believing in God simply because lots of people saw him.

"Why don't you take up the Transit Camp challenge?Should be easy for a person like you."What is the transit camp challenge. Why do you feel the need to accuse me of believing in some random statement. I can ask you to take up random beliefs: "why don't you take up the flat earth challenge". Not an argument, try actually substantiating the documents (i.e. what is being referenced only in the third person) directly instead of shying away from the simple answer to the simple question: how many bodies were found/exhumed?

Seriously, how is this that difficult to answer? How many bodies were found? You kill a man but they try you without ever looking up for a body, despite you sending messages describing how you were disposing of the body at location 'x', how you killed him, etc. It's literally a one sentence response with one number.

Never mind, I got a snipped here: http://content.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2031066,00.html"They uncovered the remains of 16 bodies — including the skeletons of children, a lady's shoe and Romanian-army bullets from 1939 — but have since called a halt to the dig while they wait for rabbis to bless the site."Seems like the rabbis also have an aversion to analyzed evidence. But we know that at least 16 were killed because they exhumed the bodies, although it would have been easier to ascertain the cause had it been closer to the time of death. "According to the 1930 Census, there were 759,000 Jews in Romania before World War II. Historians estimate that 280,000 to 380,000 were killed by Romanian forces during the war, mainly in the areas of Moldova and Ukraine they occupied as part of the German thrust into the Soviet Union. Today there are fewer than 10,000 Jews living in Romania."Lol, even the historians have to rely on fallacious arguments from silence.

"If you don't know what the challenge is,you only come her to cause trouble."Still shying away. I'll run it by you once more: how many bodies were successfully exhumed? One thousand?Ten thousand? One hundred thousand?One million?Ten million?One hundred million?Which one is closest?

"You think the nazis produced 1000s of documents just to fool each other?"At least I don't presume self-evidence and resort to unfalsifiable claims. The mere existence of documents does not prove what is stated, otherwise anything written ever by anybody is truth by mere virtue of "German authorship" as your buddy states.

"The IRC figures,the Auschwitz swimming pool,and how Mengele was just misunderstood."What? How is that an answer, just pushing for narratives that you assume I believe isn't an argument. Logical consistency is important in dialogue.

how many bodies were successfully exhumed? One thousand?Ten thousand? One hundred thousand?One million?Ten million?One hundred million?Which one is closest?

The mass murder, burial and/or subsequent exhumation and incineration of most bodies has been proven beyond the reasonable doubt by the cumulative documentary, demographic, testimonial and physical evidence.

Further investigation of mass graves or sites of incineration, though *recommended*, is not *necessary* for establishing the fact of the events, because the evidence adduced so far has been *sufficient*.

For example, numerous German wartime documents, as well as numerous witnesses, prove that more than 30000 Jews were shot in the Babiy Yar Ravine and buried there. Numerous witnesses - perpetrators, victims, bystanders - prove that these bodies were subsequently exhumed and incinerated, ashes scattered.

The evidence available right now is *sufficient* to establish that these events happened.

Would it have been fine to actually unearth the BY graves and quantify the bodies? Yes, but there are no graves, which were destroyed specifically with the intent of making quantification of the crime impossible, and the incineration site itself no longer exists for unrelated reasons (the Kurenyovka catastrophe). So while we will forever be unable to quantify the physical evidence in situ in this case, this is irrelevant as to the historicity of the event itself, the evidence for which is already sufficient.

The misunderstanding of what constitutes necessary evidence and what constitutes sufficient evidence leads to fallacious arguments likes those often thrown around by the Holocaust deniers.

"The mass murder, burial and/or subsequent exhumation and incineration of most bodies has been proven beyond the reasonable doubt by the cumulative documentary, demographic, testimonial and physical evidence."Great, so what's the figure. How many were exhumed. You didn't source a number besides the Babi Yar one. If that's what you assert as the final toll, then you're a "denier" too, but I am above presupposing the truth before analyzing the claims. "Further investigation of mass graves or sites of incineration, though *recommended*, is not *necessary* for establishing the fact of the events, because the evidence adduced so far has been *sufficient*."All the documents you use as final authorities on the topic all point to the graves, which you admit were, for the most part, left intact. If you wish to be rational, then you do not suppose the documents are self-evident and enough to convict, nor appealing to the 'people' (more 'x' equals more 'truth'), or resort to unfalsifiable claims. Emphasis on the last one, as you cannot claim to be following the scientific method if your claims cannot be tested/replicated. So the claim is 'x' millions died: where are the bodies? Documents raise probable suspicion, but do not cast guilt in and of themselves. Same goes for testimony. Otherwise, there is much more "evidence" (which you use to reach conclusions) for God than there is the Holocaust. To prove God, you would need actual evidence, as in physical evidence, that he exists in the physical world. Just as you would need to prove the 'x' millions claim. Right now, you are using the documents (which purport 'x' million), testimony from lots of people saying it happened, guilt before innocence off of the last two, but avoiding the graves (which constitute the central point). It's unfalsifiable, which isn't an argument. But we CAN prove the Babi Yar. So right now you're at 30k. "For example, numerous German wartime documents, as well as numerous witnesses, prove that more than 30000 Jews were shot in the Babiy Yar Ravine and buried there"Yeah, but that isn't enough to claim guilt. Try using only eyewitness testimony, euphemisms and innuendo, and documents alleging crimes committed (only in the third person) in a court of law and see how far it gets you. And see what the response is when you refuse to even acknowledge any investigation into the graves where the bodies are located. It will be received as highly illogical because all other pieces of evidence point TO the graves, yet (even though it is available for observation and investigation), you refuse to interact or approach the evidence? All other pieces of evidence raise probable suspicion, but are not self-evident. Otherwise you are making a genetic fallacy (the documents are proven to be valid because of the source, not the content). "The evidence available right now is *sufficient* to establish that these events happened."Genetic fallacy. Documents don't corroborate themselves, nor does testimony referencing the case-in-point (or arguing that more of it makes it "more truth"). Exhuming the corpses to prove the statements made is the only way, given the technology and manpower that can be invested. Even done in Rwanda, which is why it is truth: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/21681392.2015.1028206

"Would it have been fine to actually unearth the BY graves and quantify the bodies? Yes, but there are no graves, which were destroyed specifically with the intent of making quantification of the crime impossible, and the incineration site itself no longer exists for unrelated reasons (the Kurenyovka catastrophe). So while we will forever be unable to quantify the physical evidence in situ in this case, this is irrelevant as to the historicity of the event itself, the evidence for which is already sufficient."At least you are honest enough to admit that you are resorting to making claims that do not require evidence (i.e. are unfalsifiable). Then you immediately jump right back into claiming the absence of evidence that can be replicated is presence of evidence. If they were all killed, where are their bodies? If they were all destroyed (i.e. no evidence for the bodies) and there has been no subsequent investigation to prove bloody murder without the body (which is possible by analyzing the site and finding blood, or DNA samples, or bone fragments), then the assertion that there are millions dead cannot be substantiated outside of: 1. using documents that do not require evidence in the form of mass graves w/ bodies to be proven (even though that is entirely what they are concerned about; i.e., unfalsifiable); 2. using testimony to claim that simply because lots of people claim to have seen something, it actually happened; 3. making either circular arguments (documents prove themselves because claims are self-evident, even though the EVIDENCE was destroyed) or genetic fallacies (documents are substantiated because of the source they came from, not the content, even though the evidence was destroyed). "The misunderstanding of what constitutes necessary evidence and what constitutes sufficient evidence leads to fallacious arguments likes those often thrown around by the Holocaust deniers."You are more honest than I thought, you're admitting that the standard of evidence is arbitrarily cut in half when it comes to substantiating claims you wish to be truth. There is only evidence and nothing else. Sufficient evidence is evidence, necessary evidence is also evidence. You either have it or you don't: there is no middle ground. You can either rely on the source over the content (or, worse yet, claim that the content verifies itself even though you can't source it after 100 posts). Like I said with the backyard analogy, let's say I murdered 1000 people and destroyed the graves of 300. About 2/3 of the graves are intact and all the testimony claiming I did/documents I sent around talking about my alleged destruction of the graves all reference the central point: the graves. When somebody, logically, asks to investigate the graves to fulfil the justifiable suspicion raised by all these disappearances and fishy documents (which do not, in and of themselves, automatically prove my guilt if they cannot have the content substantiated), we do not banish him for being a heretic and doubting the conspiracy, we investigate the claims and come to the conclusion based on the investigation.

> At least you are honest enough to admit that you are resorting to making claims that do not require evidence (i.e. are unfalsifiable).

I'm not sure what you mean. As I wrote, there is sufficient evidence both for the killing and the cover-up. So I'm at a loss as to which claim of mine you mean.

The text of what you wrote shows exactly what I wrote - the confusion between sufficient and necessary evidence, something you don't understand.

Necessary evidence is not always sufficient and sufficient evidence is not always necessary.

Had the Nazis not destroyed the BY graves, they would have constituted sufficient evidence for the massacre. I.e. no other evidence would have to be adduced. But they wouldn't have constituted necessary evidence - we could still prove the massacre with other sufficient evidence.

What you wrote about sufficient and necessary evidence is just not meaningful.

-Either bodies do not validate statements made by documents, or "and yes, bodies" is true. You just refuted yourself in the same post. -Simpleton. I meant to say that bodies and documents need to be assessed together, not in isolation as this douchebag asserts. The latter statement means that bodies exist and support the conclusion of mass murder. Joseph's an illiterate dick.

"We'll never know and it's irrelevant to establishing historicity."Absence of evidence is not presence of evidence. Can't find the bodies and no subsequent archaeological investigation of the sites=no physical evidence."You probably meant to write "which you admit were probably mostly destroyed" but your finger slipped?"Your own quote earlier mentioned that "probably two-thirds" of the graves were left intact. I was referencing your own post."Since when is sufficient evidence like documents is insufficient to establish historicity?"Absence of evidence is not presence of evidence. Can't find the bodies and no subsequent archaeological investigation of the sites=no physical evidence."The problem is that there is no sufficient cumulative evidence for God like there is for the Holocaust."Argumentum ad populum. "Thank you for admitting that we can prove BY, thus demonstrating that graves are not necessary evidence."Wasn't Babi Yar proven by exhuming the bodies? What is the standard of "evidence" that is used, wasn't Babi Yar exhumed to corroborate the claims? "The Holocaust in general and BY in particular have been tested in a court of law."Says something about the standard of evidence that is accepted. Absence of evidence is not presence of evidence. Can't find the bodies and no subsequent archaeological investigation of the sites=no physical evidence."No, we already have the sufficient cumulative evidence as described above."

Where's Rob's "by who" when you need it."As I wrote, there is sufficient evidence both for the killing and the cover-up. So I'm at a loss as to which claim of mine you mean."Where? Where were the documents and the testimony referencing? On what basis can we find out that the location is truthful and not actually somewhere else if not by examining the site and exhuming the bodies to find the graves in question? That's the point I'm trying to make in regards to your unfalsifiable claims. "the confusion between sufficient and necessary evidence, something you don't understand."Evidence is, by definition, factual and truthful. Sufficiency and necessity is achieved simultaneously by the nature of evidence, unless it is not evidence. There cannot be a 'half-truth'. It either is or it isn't. "Had the Nazis not destroyed the BY graves, they would have constituted sufficient evidence for the massacre. I.e. no other evidence would have to be adduced."Well, you can claim that you have documents talking about said graves, but you will, which you have admitted, never be able to prove the physical existence and corroborate the statements within the documents because everything has been destroyed. "What you wrote about sufficient and necessary evidence is just not meaningful."That's great, but that isn't actually an argument. You've already admitted there is no physical evidence of the graves, or pointed towards physical evidence of any exhumation of bodies (because they've been destroyed). We do have documents speaking of them in the third person (i.e. documentary evidence) and testimony, but that isn't within the realm of physical evidence.

"The latter statement means that bodies exist and support the conclusion of mass murder.""I meant to say that bodies and documents need to be assessed together, not in isolation"Lol, refuting yourself again. You stated above (and by diverting from presenting the evidence because your claim is unfalsifiable, so evidence can never be presented anyways) that there is no proof (as in, exhumed bodies) of the millions the documents claim, so there are no "bodies": they've never found them. Assessing the claim of the bodies doesn't magically become substantiated because documents referencing them have been found. By that logic, God exists because people write of his existence. Just because it is documented by some source you regard as an authority doesn't make it true. Take note from Sergey, he is a little bit less emotional than you are. Is it that time of the month or something?

-The latter statement means that bodies exist and support the conclusion of mass murder.""I meant to say that bodies and documents need to be assessed together, not in isolation"Lol, refuting yourself again. You stated above (and by diverting from presenting the evidence because your claim is unfalsifiable, so evidence can never be presented anyways) that there is no proof (as in, exhumed bodies) of the millions the documents claim, so there are no "bodies":-Bodies exist and along with documents, prove that mass murder occurred. One piece of evidence is not more important than the other (which is why I said that bodies don't "validate" documents"), they are complimentary or as Sergey said, cumulative. No "self refuting". No contradiction. Documents are evidence, no matter how much you want to dismiss them, and there are indeed bodies available that when taken together with the documents, prove mass murder occured.

-he is a little bit less emotional-You're honestly starting to bore me with your constant repititions. As I said earlier, comparing God/Divine beings with things occuring in the natural world such as mass shootings, corpse incineration or mass graves, is stupid, a straw man, and an illustration of your intellectual dishonesty. Bodies, mass shootings and corpse incineration occur in the natural world and can easily be observed, which is why documents and witness statements lend weight to their occurence. A divine being, on the other hand, occurs outside of the natural world and is an extraordinary claim, requiring extraordinary evidence. The facts of the Holocaust are ordinary and occur in the natural world, Divine Beings do not. Simple as that.

I'm honestly just bored. If anyone's "emotional", it's you with your repeated (and untrue) statements about "absence of evidence). All of us have provided evidence in one shape or another. You have not.

I'm sorry, but can we ban this guy? He's not an honest debater. His whole MO is to distract from Jurgen Graf's lie while misrepresenting the statements in the original article. He also twists people's words and ignores responses to his bullshit. Even after the evidence was given to him, he dodges it and has the gall to whine about "absence of evidence". Dr. Harrison gave him links to HC's write up of mass graves in one of his very first posts. Joseph has no intellectual honesty or respect, so he doesn't deserve any.

>> But that point was not raised in regards to the document itself: the absence of evidence was raised in regards to the inquiry into the graves alleged by said documents, which are NOT invalidated/validated by a source but the content of the claims, and exhuming the bodies. If the document alleges x million and you find y million, continuing to assert y million is using the absence of evidence as presence of evidence.

Further, as seen in the links to which Jon Harrison referred you, there is a great deal of evidence of mass graves consistent with documentary and other sources about the mass shootings in the occupied East.

>> Yeah, your book (Faitelson’s book among others includes examples of German sources referring to SK 1005.) is only concerned about said document. It is not validated/invalidated by a mere source, but the content of the claims. In regards to the document, what evidence has been found that corroborates the death toll put forth (namely, how many bodies have been exhumed)?

Since that’s the topic, documents showing Graf’s dishonesty, of course.

You keep mentioning a “death toll.” What death toll? Have you read Faitelson’s book?

Your "mass graves-forensic fundamentalism" is not a method used to investigate any other large historical events; exhumations and archaeology are methods among others and not necessarily the "most true." You've been told why repeatedly: we are no more likely to have a full count of corpses of victims of the Nazi mass murder in the occupied East than we are to have a full count of people killed by other regimes or in wars.

>> The evidence that you are purporting as final authority are enough to raise reasonable suspicion

What evidence is it that I am supposedly purporting as final authority?

>> genetic fallacies. One says it was Soviet, so it is invalidated. The other says it is German, so it is validated. Neither side actually investigates the claims raised by the document to corroborate them; both are making unfalsifiable claims when they implicitly claim self-evidence of the document.

What is a genetic fallacy?

I don’t follow your “two sides” gloss.

The only claim of “self-evidence of the document” arises with regard to Graf’s lying; the existence of documents refute his point. As to the larger question of the mass shootings in the East, Jon Harrison specifically referred to the totality of the evidence, not so-called “self-evidence of the document”; I referred to the variety of evidence for the mass shootings. In the case, for example, of Ponar, we have German documents, victim testimonies, a Polish observer’s contemporaneous diary, Lithuanian documents, statements from Germans, photographs, 1940s excavations, recent archaeological investigation, and much else. The conclusions about what happened at Ponar do not rely on the final authority or self-evidence of a document but on a variety of evidence the different types which corroborate one another. http://www.skepticforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=39&t=25822&start=840#p517748 (similarly here are sources for Babi Yar)

> Can't find the bodies and no subsequent archaeological investigation of the sites=no physical evidence.

And? How is this is relevant to the evidence we do have being sufficient? See my comment at http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2017/05/busted-jurgen-graf-caught-lying-again.html?showComment=1494311328175#c732152450459813630

> Your own quote earlier mentioned that "probably two-thirds" of the graves were left intact. I was referencing your own post.

No you weren't. You're fantasizing and ascribing to me what I never wrote.

> Absence of evidence is not presence of evidence. Can't find the bodies and no subsequent archaeological investigation of the sites=no physical evidence.

How is this relevant to answering my question: "Since when is sufficient evidence like documents is insufficient to establish historicity?"

> Argumentum ad populum.

You obviously don't know what it is since it doesn't apply in any sense to what I wrote.

> Wasn't Babi Yar proven by exhuming the bodies? What is the standard of "evidence" that is used, wasn't Babi Yar exhumed to corroborate the claims?

The bodies were exhumed by the Nazis and destroyed.

You probably should read about basic things like this before coming anywhere near the topic of the Holocaust.

> Says something about the standard of evidence that is accepted.

Exactly the standard of evidence that is used in courts.

You can't first appeal to courts and then reject them when you don't like the conclusion that contradicts your dogma.

> Where? Where were the documents and the testimony referencing? On what basis can we find out that the location is truthful and not actually somewhere else if not by examining the site and exhuming the bodies to find the graves in question?

By the cumulative evidence of the German documents and witness testimony. Which is sufficient.

> Evidence is, by definition, factual and truthful. Sufficiency and necessity is achieved simultaneously by the nature of evidence, unless it is not evidence. There cannot be a 'half-truth'. It either is or it isn't.

You obviously don't understand what sufficient evidence means and what necessary evidence means. You should probably take a basic logic course.

> Well, you can claim that you have documents talking about said graves, but you will, which you have admitted, never be able to prove the physical existence and corroborate the statements within the documents because everything has been destroyed.

Since the cumulative evidence of the documents and the testimonies is sufficient, our inability to examine the physical evidence is irrelevant to the question of the historicity of the event in question.

Same logic applies to:

- the historicity of Julius Caesar and of his murder (we don't have the body to establish either);- Stalin's mass killings (we don't have the absolute majority of bodies and have to rely on documents and other evidence);

Or do you reject them too?

> That's great, but that isn't actually an argument.

It's a statement of fact. What you wrote about the sufficient and the necessary evidence is simply not meaningful. It doesn't result in a meaningful statement.

You obviously don't understand what sufficient evidence means and what necessary evidence means and you are not being responsive to what I write about these types of evidence.

> but that isn't within the realm of physical evidence.

Since the evidence we do have is sufficient, physical evidence is not necessary evidence.

The reason why I'm inviting you to Skeptics is that posting links here is a pain in the ass, also, I've had to edit some of my comments down to meet the character limit. That limit does not exist at Skeptics.The reason why I'm telling you to look into the subject on your own is that I don't feel obligated to teach you everything there is about this subject. I've spent quite a lot of time over the last five years learning about about this subject, you could take a fraction of your time to do the same.Look, either come to Skeptics or don't. If you don't you'll just be another gutless denier afraid to step out of your comfort zone or reveal your lack of knowledge. If you do you'll at least show your willingness to learn.

I don't want to go into this too much since it's not the subject of the article. But, for that pesky article 19 that Joseph likes to Bitch about...

In his article about the IMT, Roberto actually provided multiple examples of Canadian or American courts/systems forgoing "technical rules of evidence". In all of these cases, a Jury wasn't involved, and the investigations or hearings usually involved professional judges who had enough training and ability to asses evidence according to their own judgement without referring to the formal US rules of evidence. For example.

www.gencourt.state.nh.us/RSA/html/I/21-J/21-J-27.htmTITLE ITHE STATE AND ITS GOVERNMENTCHAPTER 21-JDEPARTMENT OF REVENUE ADMINISTRATIONMiscellaneous ProvisionsSection 21-J:27 21-J:27 Rules of Evidence. – In any investigation or hearing, the commissioner shall not be bound by the technical rules of evidence.Source. 1985, 204:1, eff. July 1, 1985.

There was nothing sinister or suspicious about Article 19. Continental judges and Lawyers were unfamiliar with American style rules of evidence, so the Americans did not drive their British, French or Russian counterparts to follow them.

Roberto's article about the IMt is always a good read. Much better than any of Joseph's dribble.

-We can see the "formal rules of evidence" falling apart when Nikitchenko demands for harsher sentences, or even the death sentence for Hess.-Hess was actually given a life sentence and died in 1987, so your "death sentence" BS is a lie. And as for your "Niktichenko" rubbish, the IMT and other war crimes trials were actually the first stages of what would become the Cold War, meaning that the growing dispute between the Western powers and the USSR would heavily shape the background of that trial. Thus, the IMT decided on a 3 Million death toll for Auschwitz, rather than the 4 Million being promoted by the Soviets. More significantly, the Western Allies did not allow the USSR to pin the Katyn massacre on the Nazis like they wanted. They also made sure to acquit Hjalmar Schacht because they wanted to avoid giving the communists "ammunition" by convicting a "capitalist" for war crimes. After the IMT, American businessmen also lobbied for German industrialists not to be tried for the same reason.Your bitching about "Niktichenko" shows that you don't know what the IMT was, and that you have nothing but assertions and conspiracy theories. Go fuck yourself, you ignorant hypocrite.

"Bodies exist and along with documents, prove that mass murder occurred."Where's the citation indicating the physical existence of the bodies? You've just been insulting your way through this the entire time. Try substantiating your claims for a start."One piece of evidence is not more important than the other (which is why I said that bodies don't "validate" documents"), they are complimentary or as Sergey said, cumulative."When corroborated with physical evidence of the bodies, yes."No "self refuting". No contradiction."Not a single citation, though. How many bodies were exhumed? You were the one who referenced "and yes... bodies"."You're honestly starting to bore me with your constant repititions. As I said earlier, comparing God/Divine beings with things occuring in the natural world such as mass shootings, corpse incineration or mass graves, is stupid, a straw man, and an illustration of your intellectual dishonesty."Yet you keep on replying. It's because the same weakened standard of evidence, when applied to other cases, falls apart instantly. There is more testimonial evidence for the existence of God, people who have claimed to encounter God have all affirmed it, there are many thousands more pages of works related to God. The evidence is "cumulative" that God exists.Argumentum ad populum, genetic fallacy, and a circular argument all rolled into one: you only dislike it when it doesn't affirm your worldview."Bodies, mass shootings and corpse incineration occur in the natural world and can easily be observed, which is why documents and witness statements lend weight to their occurence."Many more people have testified that God exists than for the Holocaust. The documents referencing the actions he did are much more plentiful than the Holocaust."occurs outside of the natural world and is an extraordinary claim, requiring extraordinary evidence."*Physical evidence. Kind of like your unsubstantiated claims."I'm honestly just bored. If anyone's "emotional", it's you with your repeated (and untrue) statements about "absence of evidence)"This coming from the guy linking to "f you" songs in a formal debate. Okay buddy. Absence of evidence is in reference to your aversion in providing a number for the bodies exhumed. You have yet to provide any such figure. "I'm sorry, but can we ban this guy?"Not an argument. Also illustrates the irony of how I am emotional, when you resort to banning opposition instead.

Further, as seen in the links to which Jon Harrison referred you, there is a great deal of evidence of mass graves consistent with documentary and other sources about the mass shootings in the occupied East."Yes, Graf is wrong because it is a genetic fallacy: the documents being Soviet, German, British, etc. has no relevance to the content of the claims. Anybody who uses the source over the content is guilty of this, yourself included. The issue is the content of the documents being corroborated with physical evidence. Evidence of the mass graves? Please source it to me again. I'm replying to about five or six of you and it's been over 100 posts. How many bodies were exhumed, for starters?"You keep mentioning a “death toll.” What death toll?"Claimed by the documents."Your "mass graves-forensic fundamentalism" is not a method used to investigate any other large historical events; exhumations and archaeology are methods among others and not necessarily the "most true." You've been told why repeatedly: we are no more likely to have a full count of corpses of victims of the Nazi mass murder in the occupied East than we are to have a full count of people killed by other regimes or in wars."http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/21681392.2015.1028206That was literally a single google search. If I remember correctly, the Cambodian killing fields were also exhumed, too. Probable suspicion raised by disappearances and testimony (although relying on that alone would be an argument from silence fallacy and assuming an argumentum ad populum for the testimony, also making an unfalsifiable claim because the testimony is taken at face value and no investigation is allowed into what is being claimed) leading to exhuming the deceased. The whole "likely" argument is not compelling as it is already admitted that there is no follow-up investigation into the documents' claims: all that is left is documentary evidence, not the physical evidence that is raised by the documents. It's already an unfalsifiable claim that has no trail to follow up and replicate. "What evidence is it that I am supposedly purporting as final authority?"Documents sent between officials that are supposed to be self-evident and do not require an investigation into said graves (because they were destroyed, oh well... but this isn't an unfalsifiable claim, though). "What is a genetic fallacy? "In this case, genetic. A broken clock is right twice a day. Source does not determine validity.

"The only claim of “self-evidence of the document” arises with regard to Graf’s lying; the existence of documents refute his point. As to the larger question of the mass shootings in the East, Jon Harrison specifically referred to the totality of the evidence, not so-called “self-evidence of the document”; I referred to the variety of evidence for the mass shootings. In the case, for example, of Ponar, we have German documents, victim testimonies, a Polish observer’s contemporaneous diary, Lithuanian documents, statements from Germans, photographs, 1940s excavations, recent archaeological investigation, and much else. The conclusions about what happened at Ponar do not rely on the final authority or self-evidence of a document but on a variety of evidence the different types which corroborate one another. http://www.skepticforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=39&t=25822&start=840#p517748 (similarly here are sources for Babi Yar)"That still assumes the documents are self-evident and outside of follow-up investigations, which is not true. Graf is wrong because that's a genetic fallacy: who cares if the Soviets made up the document, is what is claimed found in the real world to be truthful or not?I can write anything I want to in my diary, or send as many messages as I wish: the source of the claim does not prove the content, by default. That's the whole point I am trying to make. Something isn't validated/invalidated because of who may or may not have wrote it, but because of what is claimed (to be found truthful). The blogpost contains the same fallacies: an argumentum ad populum (lots of people believe that something happened, so it must be truth), evidence that proves itself/outside of follow-up investigations to corroborate what is claimed, an argument from silence fallacy, and more genetic fallacies (German documents illustrating German actions prove that it is truthful because the source overrides the content of the claim). The only compelling evidence is the mass grave reports, so I ask: how many bodies were exhumed?

-Where's the citation indicating the physical existence of the bodies? -Now you're just lying. Like I said Dr. Harrison provided links to the HC blog's write ups about mass exhumations in his very first post. Roberto and JKelly also cited examples of postwar investigative reports.

-"One piece of evidence is not more important than the other (which is why I said that bodies don't "validate" documents"), they are complimentary or as Sergey said, cumulative."When corroborated with physical evidence of the bodies, yes.-And they are, and much more besides.

-Many more people have testified that God exists than for the Holocaust. The documents referencing the actions he did are much more plentiful than the Holocaust.-

Nope. There's the bible, and possibly the Quran. Two books really don't compare to some 7 million pages of German wartime reports stored in the US National archives alone. A book like the bible written decades after the alleged facts doesn't compare to operational reports prepared by death squads tallying their kills, or reports of body disposal. The latter falls into what the US Federal rules of evidence calls "rational perception of the witness" and is reasonable and believable. Burning bushes, worldwide floods, Jesus rising from the dead or the miracle of Fatima doesn't compare to that, obviously.

-Argumentum ad populum, genetic fallacy, and a circular argument all rolled into one: you only dislike it when it doesn't affirm your worldview.-You don't know what any of those mean, as Sergey and Roberto have told you.

-"occurs outside of the natural world and is an extraordinary claim, requiring extraordinary evidence."-*Physical evidence. Kind of like your unsubstantiated claims.-

God and so called "miracles", unlike Mass shootings and corpse incineration, occurs outside of the natural world and require extraordinary, or even phyisical evidence. You're twisting other people's words again. Mass shootings and corpse incineration occur within the natural world, which is why Exhuming the bodies, while helpful, is not absolutely necessary for establishing them. Documentary, witness and photographic evidence is sufficient.

-Not an argument-Duh. It's an insult, which is all that you deserve given your repeated intellectual dishonesty. Another reason it's not an "argument" is because it was a question addressed to the moderators, and not an attempt to respond to your inane bullshit.

"I prefer to dissect him alive."Not an argument. Try and point the skeptic finger towards your own empty claims and answer the simple question: how many bodies were exhumed if you stated earlier that "probably two-thirds of the graves" were left intact (best documented mass murder in history, but the best you can do is a "probably"?). "This is relevant to what I wrote how?"Aversion to substantiating your claims and admitting that they are unfalsifiable because the graves (that the documents reference) have been destroyed."And? How is this is relevant to the evidence we do have being sufficient?"At least you admit you have no physical evidence of the bodies that are claimed to have been executed by the millions, and I don't mean whole bodies intact: not even follow-up investigations to find remnants. "No you weren't. You're fantasizing and ascribing to me what I never wrote."Confused you and Rob together, here's his quote: There mass graves were located, exhumed and in some cases autopsied. Probably better than two-thirds of the mass graves were found intact after the war. A number have been re-exhumed or relocated since the end of the Cold War, notably at Marijampole in LithuaniaWhat is the "number that were exhumed"?""Since when is sufficient evidence like documents is insufficient to establish historicity?""Documents are not self-evident of that which they claim to be purporting, otherwise you are admitting the resorting to an unfalsifiable claim. "You obviously don't know what it is since it doesn't apply in any sense to what I wrote."Appealing to the majority simply because they claim to have seen it occur=it did occur. Not an argument. Testimony is not self-evident, too. Otherwise if lots of people testify against something or somebody, then it is guilty automatically. "The bodies were exhumed by the Nazis and destroyed."You're more honest than I thought; at least you are admitting that all physical evidence was destroyed and cannot be provided (same evidence the documents allege). "Exactly the standard of evidence that is used in courts."So courts accept genetic fallacies (documents are true because the source overrides the content, which was all destroyed... oh, but this isn't unfalsifiable, trust me). Good to know. "You can't first appeal to courts and then reject them when you don't like the conclusion that contradicts your dogma."This assumes that courts are willing to deliberately lower the standard of evidence when all other evidence has been destroyed. The logical question would be into the graves to see how many can be found. Just the same response after every tragedy. "By the cumulative evidence of the German documents and witness testimony."Argumentum ad populum. Quantity does not override quality. Lots of people saying something happened doesn't make it truth, by default. Documents are not self-evident if you cannot replicate what they allege (or, better yet, admit there is no physical evidence trail left, admitting to making an unfalsifiable statement)."It's a statement of fact."Presupposing that it is factual information without actually providing physical evidence is not an argument."You obviously don't understand what sufficient evidence means and what necessary evidence"Evidence is evidence is evidence. There are no half-truths: only what is truthful, you can replicate, and is unfalsifiable. "Since the evidence we do have is sufficient, physical evidence is not necessary evidence."The documents all reference the physical evidence, which you cannot provide. Therefore you are making an unfalsifiable claim and resorting to lowering the bar of evidence to find guilt (documents prove themselves instead of being proven by investigating what is alleged within and lots of testimony=truthful testimony).

"- the historicity of Julius Caesar and of his murder (we don't have the body to establish either);- Stalin's mass killings (we don't have the absolute majority of bodies and have to rely on documents and other evidence);

Or do you reject them too?"I will repost what I wrote on the black death issue, as it seems like you folk can't really stick to substantiating the claims raised in the documents.""The Black Death 'allegedly' killed 75-200 million people.Until they are all exhumed and counted,I won't believe it happened.If the bodies were burnt,I really won't believe it.Too convenient.And seeing no 'eyewitness' can be produced,I'm sure it didn't happen."Notice the discrepancy in the death toll? That is not by coincidence, as ascertaining the legitimate death toll is incredibly difficult given the scope of human development during the Medieval ages. No real incentive to count as the finale is not equivalent (wars versus plagues are vastly different scenarios, especially considering the gravity of the black death). Why don't you follow up with the footnotes and take a look at the death toll: I'll give you a penny for every time they use the word "estimated" or guesses along those lines. Twentieth century Europe is not equivalent to the Medieval ages, the timelines are completely different. That's all we DO have, though. The bodies are long gone and we are stuck with educated guesses. We know that it is a non-zero number and we knows that it was in the millions (only because the phrasing/terminology used references "empty towns"; add them up and take a lower limit of the major cities it struck and you have a number that, at the very minimum, breaks the millions). Also, I'm not making the hyperbole of exhuming EVERY body, but when it is self-admitted that "two-thirds" of the graves were intact, some more intellectual honesty and investigative work is expected. The last sentence is incorrect, as I don't put enough faith into eyewitness testimony and appeals to the people as you do, otherwise I'd believe in God. Also, that's the entire point I'm raising on the third sentence: the conclusion is unfalsifiable. "We know 'x' millions died because of the documents which are proven by the source not the content, but any investigation into the content is unreliable because the graves were destroyed, so the true figure is lost and we can never know, except for my claim that it is absolute truth beyond debate." At best, it's an educated guess. The Rwandan genocide is more than an educated guess precisely because there was a great effort to exhume the bodies (http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/21681392.2015.1028206). Even the Black Death, centuries removed from our time, has had the claims made on its behalf (save for the death toll) verified (https://www.awesomestories.com/asset/view/The-Black-Death-Scientific-Evidence-of-Plague)."

"The reason why I'm inviting you to Skeptics is that posting links here is a pain in the ass"Not for me. It's already fine for me. Besides, I'd rather stick around with a bunch of people who admit to lacking physical evidence and doing away with it in regards to their worldview (but introducing it when unfalsifiable claims are not in question) who gang up and use insults than your crowd.Medium is not the issue, that's a non-argument. "Look, either come to Skeptics or don't. If you don't you'll just be another gutless denier afraid to step out of your comfort zone or reveal your lack of knowledge."If I am to expect the same ad homs from a so-called rational community. This coming from the guy arguing the medium instead of the content and presupposing self-evident documents when his worldview is in question. You don't need to post too many links, it should be simple, single number: how many bodies were exhumed?

-lots of people believe that something happened, so it must be truth-Lots of people experienced or did something, and were rigorously cross examined by several courts, including German ones that were skewed in favor of the defendants. The ones doing the examination found that more often than not, the witnesses corroborated each other independently, raising the probability of their experiences and reducing the likelihood of collusion or scamming. Several victims also incriminated themselves by admitting they did questionable or even immoral things, making it unlikely that they made it all up. Thus, your "argumentum ad populum" horseshit is just that. No one takes witnesses at face value or accepts "claims" because "a lot of people said so". What they said was rigorously vetted, by lawyers and historians and determined to be true.

-I can write anything I want to in my diary, or send as many messages as I wish: the source of the claim does not prove the content-You're an irrelevant online troll. Like Roberto said, Killers reporting or tallying their kills to their superiors, or similar things, is different. And for your inane analogy to be valid, you need to explain why these reports came about if they are something other than what they were. You're an idiot, so we can see why you'd fantasize about killing people in whatever toilet paper you record your miserable existence on. However, the claim that several paramilitaries - known to be "normal" people except for the fact that their job is killing people- wrote reports to their superiors about either killing people or burning corpses, or thar certain military officers in what was seen as the most disciplined military in the world at the time filed complaints about said paramilitaries killing people for no real reason other than shits and giggles, or that they were all idiots like you, is an extraordinary claim, much like the alleged existence of god, and requires extraordinary evidence. You have yet to substantiate your retarded analogy, and you probably never will. Because you're a dick.

>> the documents being Soviet, German, British, etc. has no relevance to the content of the claims. Anybody who uses the source over the content is guilty of this, yourself included.

Again, where did I do any such thing?

However, for the purpose of refuting a claim that no German documents refer to something, showing German documents referring to it is not irrelevant.

>> The issue is the content of the documents being corroborated with physical evidence.

Which is tangential to the original point.

>> Evidence of the mass graves? Please source it to me again. I'm replying to about five or six of you and it's been over 100 posts. How many bodies were exhumed, for starters?

Can’t you read?

>> ”You keep mentioning a “death toll.” What death toll?"Claimed by the documents.

Which documents? What are you referring to?

>> http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/21681392.2015.1028206That was literally a single google search.

So what? You can use Google search tools?

I’m proud of you but I didn’t say that studies of mass graves were not a method used - rather that they are not the main method used. Frankly, if you believe that mass graves of Nazi victims were not studied - I mentioned in my comment that such evidence is part of the suite of evidence we have about Ponary - there is little hope for you.

>> The whole "likely" argument is not compelling

Did I make some “likely” argument?

>> as it is already admitted that there is no follow-up investigation into the documents' claims

Did I “admit” this? Where?

>> Documents sent between officials that are supposed to be self-evident

Not by me. I wrote rather the opposite.

>> In this case, genetic. A broken clock is right twice a day. Source does not determine validity

Speaking of irrelevancy … I never claimed any such thing, so why pretend I did.

>> That still assumes the documents are self-evident and outside of follow-up investigations, which is not true.

No, it doesn’t. There have been many - in your terms - follow up studies based on the sources.

>> I can write anything I want to in my diary, or send as many messages as I wish:

And if there is not evidence to corroborate and shed light on your entries, we will know that and dismiss them as being as worthless as your comments here. Which is of course why I wrote in this case that the different pieces and types of “evidence … corroborate one another.”

>> more genetic fallacies (German documents illustrating German actions prove that it is truthful because the source overrides the content of the claim).

You appear to be arguing with voices in your head: I wrote no such thing. I wrote instead that in the cases of Ponary and Babi Yar different kinds of evidence reinforce one another and help us draw conclusions about what happened from a broad evidence base, from different sources.

>> The only compelling evidence is the mass grave reports, so I ask: how many bodies were exhumed?

Like a brainless parrot you do repeat yourself. But, no, your forensic fundamentalism is not a method - it is your way of trying to be clever and ignoring the evidence you’ve been cited.

-"I prefer to dissect him alive."Not an argument.-Duh. He was responding to my question, and not to any of your inane bullshit. Of course it's not an "argument". It's another insult, which is all you deserve.

"Roberto actually provided multiple examples of Canadian or American courts/systems forgoing "technical rules of evidence". In all of these cases, a Jury wasn't involved, and the investigations or hearings usually involved professional judges who had enough training and ability to asses evidence according to their own judgement without referring to the formal US rules of evidence."So a "jury of [your] peers" wasn't provided. But there is a difference between disallowing evidence to be presented in the first place and allowing evidence to pass through verification/validity and be accepted/denied. In principle, it does away with what could be one sentence uttered to bury the issue, but takes in its place the freedom to present such information to begin with. Like I mentioned, I vote we call it the Ministry of Truth. "There was nothing sinister or suspicious about Article 19. Continental judges and Lawyers were unfamiliar with American style rules of evidence, so the Americans did not drive their British, French or Russian counterparts to follow them."Just as the Americans are technically the only nation to have the freedom of speech. "Hess was actually given a life sentence and died in 1987, so your "death sentence" BS is a lie."http://avalon.law.yale.edu/imt/jack17.asp"Third, with regard to the position of the judge-the Soviet Delegation. considers that there is no necessity in trials of this sort to accept the principle that the judge is a completely disinterested party with no previous knowledge of the case. The declaration of the Crimea Conference is quite clear that the objective is to bring these criminals to a just and speedy trial. Therefore, the judge, before he takes his seat in court, already knows what has been quoted in the press of all countries, and it is well known, about the criminal as accused and the general outline of the case against him. The case f or the prosecution is undoubtedly known to the judge before the trial starts and there is, therefore, no necessity to create a sort of fiction that the judge is a disinterested person who has no legal knowledge of what has happened before. If such procedure is adopted that the judge is supposed to be impartial, it would only lead to unnecessary delays and offer opportunity for the accused to bring delays in the action of the trial."He disagreed with the acquittal of Schacht."After the IMT, American businessmen also lobbied for German industrialists not to be tried for the same reason."Yeah, lobbies aren't exactly a shining bastion of judiciary honesty, the people don't exactly appreciate that these days. Thanks for making my case, though, lol!"Your bitching about "Niktichenko" shows that you don't know what the IMT was, and that you have nothing but assertions and conspiracy theories. Go fuck yourself, you ignorant hypocrite."Hey remember when you said: I'm sorry, but can we ban this guy? He's not an honest debater.Yeah, that was funny, right? Remind me again, who is the one using his emotions to fuel the point? I've not used a single profanity against you, but you think linking to youtube videos of "f you" songs is somehow an argument.

->> ”You keep mentioning a “death toll.” What death toll?"Claimed by the documents.

Which documents? What are you referring to?-Dear Statistical, correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think there's any single document that proves the Holocaust death toll. As far as I know, it's population statistics that are used for that. The EG reports that Joseph bitches about actually prove the intent to kill Jews for being Jews, with the death tallies merely being incidental, while the SK1005 reports were about attempts to dispose of the bodies, rather than the death toll. Is my understanding correct?

Also, since the docs are usually used to indicate or prove killing intent/genocidal policy, I'm not really seeing how an alleged discrepancy between a figure in a document and the "bodies exhumed" would cast doubt on the latter.

And before the dick tries to get "clever", this isn't an argument. I'm clarifying something with Statistical Mechanic, rather than "arguing" with the dick.

"Roberto and JKelly also cited examples of postwar investigative reports."All I read was more "self-evident" documents. So in their examples, how many bodies were exhumed during the investigation into the graves?"When corroborated with physical evidence of the bodies, yes"See above."Nope. There's the bible, and possibly the Quran"There are more than two religions founded in the history of humanity."Two books really don't compare to some 7 million pages of German wartime reports stored in the US National archives alone"At least you admit to using the whole 'quantity over quality/substantiation' bit. "A book like the bible written decades after the alleged facts doesn't compare to operational reports prepared by death squads tallying their kills, or reports of body disposal."Again, I am not only referencing Christianity. Using this logic, the testimony produced a few decades after the war can be dismissed, too. "You don't know what any of those mean"Appealing to the people. Making a quantity over quality point, that just because lots of people claim that something "is" doesn't necessarily prove it to be truthful."God and so called "miracles", unlike Mass shootings and corpse incineration, occurs outside of the natural world and require extraordinary, or even phyisical evidence."Physical evidence is within the natural world."Duh. It's an insult"At least you admit to not being able to set aside your emotions when your conspiracy theories are founded to have no physical evidence (i.e. how many bodies were exhumed).

"Lots of people experienced or did something, and were rigorously cross examined by several courts, including German ones that were skewed in favor of the defendants."Have the testimonies of the mass graves and millions dying been substantiated with follow-up investigative reports/archaeological examinations of the claims made? If so, how many bodies were exhumed versus how many are claimed to have died?"You're an irrelevant online troll."Not an argument."Killers reporting or tallying their kills to their superiors"Documents are not self-evident."You're an idiot, so we can see why you'd fantasize about killing people in whatever toilet paper you record your miserable existence on."Still not an argument; try substantiating your claims for a change. You really get emotional when people dig into your conspiracy theories and unfalsifiable claims, eh?"However, the claim that several paramilitaries - known to be "normal" people except for the fact that their job is killing people- wrote reports to their superiors about either killing people or burning corpses, or thar certain military officers in what was seen as the most disciplined military in the world at the time filed complaints about said paramilitaries killing people for no real reason other than shits and giggles, or that they were all idiots like you, is an extraordinary claim, much like the alleged existence of god, and requires extraordinary evidence."Where the graves ever located and had follow-up investigations/archaeological examinations conducted? If so, how many bodies were exhumed? Documents are not self-evident; that's an unfalsifiable statement, which is not an argument.

-At least you admit to using the whole 'quantity over quality/substantiation' bit. -

Here's what I wrote, paraphrasing Roberto.

-stored in the US National archives alone. A book like the bible written decades after the alleged facts doesn't compare to operational reports prepared by death squads tallying their kills, or reports of body disposal. The latter falls into what the US Federal rules of evidence calls "rational perception of the witness" and is reasonable and believable. Burning bushes, worldwide floods, Jesus rising from the dead or the miracle of Fatima doesn't compare to that, obviously. -

Just like Roberto did in his discussion with the dick, I actually explained why the evidence for the Holocaust is qualitatively better than the dick's comparison with the bible. Lying dick is lying.

What a surprise, the Dick missed my point about Niktichenko. The Western powers made every attempt to undermine the USSR and their agenda at the Nuremberg trials, and after it. Therefore, Niktichenko was irrelevant, and so is the Dick's bitching about him, and his implicit statement that Niktichenko and the USSR's participation somehow undermined the IMT's credibility. He knows as much about the IMT as a pig knows about Sunday. Nothing new.

However, for the purpose of refuting a claim that no German documents refer to something, showing German documents referring to it is not irrelevant."Mentioning that Graf is wrong because the documents are German, not Soviet, but not actually citing a follow-up investigation into the documents' assertions into the graves is a genetic fallacy as the basis for truth is rooted in the source of the claims, not the content/physical evidence."Which is tangential to the original point."Original point is replacing one genetic fallacy with another."Can’t you read?"Not answering the question: Evidence of the mass graves? Please source it to me again. I'm replying to about five or six of you and it's been over 100 posts. How many bodies were exhumed, for starters?Try being honest and not piling up five or six on one, and source your claims clearly. Weren't you the one who sourced me to some random skeptic community website? That's the last one I remember. Again, since it's on your mind and you remember the source, how many bodies were exhumed in the investigations?"Which documents? What are you referring to?" The same ones you are purporting to be self-evident, messages between officials speaking of exhumation and whatnot. "So what? You can use Google search tools?"Deliberately obfuscating the point. The point wasn't related to searching on google, but the source that I cited about exhuming the dead after the Rwandan genocide."Frankly, if you believe that mass graves of Nazi victims were not studied - I mentioned in my comment that such evidence is part of the suite of evidence we have about Ponary - there is little hope for you."Yet you can't give me a number as to how many were exhumed when "studying" the graves. "Did I make some “likely” argument?"Yes, making the personal incredulity fallacy. It just "not being likely to have occurred" isn't an argument: neither is our entire existence "likely". "Did I “admit” this? Where?"We can test it right now: how many bodies were exhumed in follow-up investigations?"Not by me. I wrote rather the opposite."Alright, how many bodies were exhumed when following up with the documents to find the physical evidence?"Speaking of irrelevancy … I never claimed any such thing, so why pretend I did."See above. "There have been many - in your terms - follow up studies based on the sources."Alright, how many bodies were exhumed when following up with the documents to find the physical evidence?"And if there is not evidence to corroborate and shed light on your entries, we will know that and dismiss them as being as worthless as your comments here"Glossing past the emotional outburst, how much physical evidence of said graves (raised by the documents) has been found when investigating the claims?" I wrote instead that in the cases of Ponary and Babi Yar different kinds of evidence reinforce one another and help us draw conclusions about what happened from a broad evidence base, from different sources."Quantity does not override quality. If you can't even find the graves and exhume the alleged millions, then the documents lack physical evidence."Like a brainless parrot you do repeat yourself."And you come from the skeptic community, yet you cannot control your emotions and have these odd emotional outbursts. You and Nathan would get along just fine, he also lacks composure and maturity.

"Duh. He was responding to my question, and not to any of your inane bullshit. Of course it's not an "argument". It's another insult, which is all you deserve."Which is not an argument; glad we agree."Dear Statistical, correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think there's any single document that proves the Holocaust death toll. As far as I know, it's population statistics that are used for that. The EG reports that Joseph bitches about actually prove the intent to kill Jews for being Jews, with the death tallies merely being incidental, while the SK1005 reports were about attempts to dispose of the bodies, rather than the death toll. Is my understanding correct?"At least you agree to resorting to the argument from silence fallacy and a lack of physical evidence.You and I actually fully agree that the reports show intention and raise probable suspicion. But that's all. They are not self-evident.The issue of physical evidence to corroborate the documents is where we disagree."Also, since the docs are usually used to indicate or prove killing intent/genocidal policy"lol, Nathan and I agree: the documents are used to indicate intention and policy, not physical evidence in and of themselves.

"-stored in the US National archives alone. A book like the bible written decades after the alleged facts doesn't compare to operational reports prepared by death squads tallying their kills, or reports of body disposal. The latter falls into what the US Federal rules of evidence calls "rational perception of the witness" and is reasonable and believable. Burning bushes, worldwide floods, Jesus rising from the dead or the miracle of Fatima doesn't compare to that, obviously. -"There is more than one religion in the world. I believe there are about 4200 religions. This isn't a real source, but here's the search entry for it: https://www.google.ca/search?q=how+many+religions+are+there&oq=how+many+relig&aqs=chrome.0.0j69i57j0l4.2308j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8Not every religious text is written decades after the fact. Pretty sure Muhammed was writing his "self-evident" documents as angels were speaking to him. "The Western powers made every attempt to undermine the USSR and their agenda at the Nuremberg trials, and after it. "Open dissent within the ranks: what a cohesive and firm structure of justice!"Therefore, Niktichenko was irrelevant,"He shouldn't have shown up to work, then."and his implicit statement that Niktichenko and the USSR's participation somehow undermined the IMT's credibility."Lol, I never claimed that it undermined the credibility. Disallowing evidence to be presented in principle instead of simply waiting for it to be mentioned, then dismissed was the point of contention. It's an appeal to authority. The evidence is evidence is evidence: it is either truth and valid or it isn't. The defence should be able to state "2+2=4" and have the freedom to do so, even if it is irrelevant because then the court will just refute it. That's different from silencing him altogether.

-Not an argument-It is. No one cares what Joseph thinks or writes. Using his own irrelevant fantasies to explain away reports by government agencies to keep track of their operations doesn't really prove anything, no matter how much he insists to the contrary.

- that's an unfalsifiable statement-No, it's not. I already explained how it can be falsified: explain how the documents came about, whether the Germans made them for shits and giggles, or were "faked" by some third party to frame them.The Dick has yet to do this.

- your conspiracy theories-.This from a man who whines about the utterly harmless article 19, and spreads conspiracy theories about the IMT while ignoring the actual politics behind them. Lol.

-Hess was actually given a life sentence and died in 1987, so your "death sentence" BS is a lie."http://avalon.law.yale.edu/imt/jack17.asp"Third, with regard to the position of the judge-the Soviet Delegation. considers that there is no necessity in trials of this sort to accept the principle that the judge is a completely disinterested party with no previous knowledge of the case. The declaration of the Crimea Conference is quite clear that the objective is to bring these criminals to a just and speedy trial. Therefore, the judge, before he takes his seat in court, already knows what has been quoted in the press of all countries, and it is well known, about the criminal as accused and the general outline of the case against him. The case f or the prosecution is undoubtedly known to the judge before the trial starts and there is, therefore, no necessity to create a sort of fiction that the judge is a disinterested person who has no legal knowledge of what has happened before. If such procedure is adopted that the judge is supposed to be impartial, it would only lead to unnecessary delays and offer opportunity for the accused to bring delays in the action of the trial."-This doesn't have anything to do with the fact that Hess was not sentenced to death, but actually served a life sentence until 1987. Or with the fact that Joseph lied about Hess.

-He (Niktichenko) opposed Schacht's acquittal-A soviet communist from a Soviet Communist government opposing the acquittal of a capitalist war criminal at the hands of other capitalists. Duh.Schacht was acquitted, among other things. Niktichenko was irrelevant.

-The Western powers made every attempt to undermine the USSR and their agenda at the Nuremberg trials, and after it. "Open dissent within the ranks: what a cohesive and firm structure of justice!-Since one of the results was Katyn not being pinned on the Nazis as the USSR wanted, I would agree.

"It is."No, it isn't. You can't keep your emotions out of it. "No, it's not."As a consequence of your own assertions, yes it is. You admit that the trail was destroyed, so there is no physical evidence left. Only documentary evidence, which cannot corroborate itself. Likewise, testimony cannot corroborate itself. 2+2=4 because axioms put forth make it so: it has to be so in order for the whole system to work. But you need to follow up with the claims raised. So the documents discuss graves: where are they and how many are there within them. Did they destroy all the evidence, as in everything? If so, there is no basis to determine guilt. Probable suspicion=/=guilt. If I kill a person, but I get rid of literally every piece of physical evidence of the crime as if it never happened, then you cannot assume my guilt if there is nothing to find/no physical evidence. You couldn't say "oh, well lots of people believe it, you talked all about doing it, you own lots of guns, etc." if there is nothing to prove it in the real world (i.e. blood trail). It's unfalsifiable."This from a man who whines about the utterly harmless article 19"Like I mentioned, the US is the only nation with freedom of speech laws. Difference between disallowing the presentation of a claim and allowing it to pass scrutiny. It barely saves a few moments. I vote to call it the Ministry of Truth.

Actually they can. Coincident, independent testimonies corroborate each other and make it very likely that the events described therein happened, since the independence rules out any collusion or invention. This is how the legal system works with testimonies. One set of documents from one group can and do corroborate others, such as reports from the Wehrmacht lending credence to those from the SS, or intelligence services and vice versa. Finally, documents and witness testimonies do corroborate and complement each other, and point to mass murder. This was the approach done by several courts, meaning that your waffling about what does or doesn't corroborate each other is irrelevant. This is how science, the law, and history works. Assessing ALL the available evidence, seeing the common points, and following them to where they lead. This, and not your inane insistence on. "Muh physical evidence"

- No, it's not."As a consequence of your own assertions, yes it is.-No, it's not. I already explained how it can be falsified: explain how the documents came about, whether the Germans made them for shits and giggles, or were "faked" by some third party to frame them.The Dick has yet to do this.

-"It is."No, it isn't. You can't keep your emotions out of it. -Emotion has nothing to do with it, or at least, not all of it. It's not really a good analogy: the dick writes his murder fantasies down in his toilet paper because he is a dick and an idiot. Government agencies or the military write down their operations as part of record keeping and the inevitable operations of government. It's an apples and oranges comparison that doesn't prove anything. For the dick's reasoning to be a valid argument, he needs to validate the analogy and show equivalence: that the authors of thr documents did not mean what they said, that they wrote them for shits and giggles, or that they were idiots like Joseph the dick. It's really that simple, and is the way to falsify the claim. The dick doesn't do this because he is a dick, and he has nothing in response whenever his inane analogies are called out.

The dick complains about "quantity over quality", and yet Sergey, Dr. Harrison, Roberto in the other discussion, DP, SM Jkelly and if I do say so myself, have taken great pains to either provide evidence and explain how the historical method really works (quality). And yet, the Dick has done nothing but spout gibberish and repeat himself ad nauseum, demanding "muh physical evidence" and dismissing it when cited and ignoring the explanation that "muh physical evidence" is just one piece of the jigsaw, instead of the whole jigsaw.(quality)The dick's a spammer and a hypocrite. He's the only one prioritizing quantity over quality.

"Actually they can."So it's a self-evident claim with no physical substantiation, despite the fact that the entire point raised by said documents relates directly to mass graves and the deceased, which cannot be sourced or examined because oops, they're all gone. "Coincident, independent testimonies corroborate each other and make it very likely that the events described therein happened, since the independence rules out any collusion or invention."What is the testimony referencing. Has that 'thing' been researched and examined to exist? Many people speaking of a thing in unison does not make it truthful by default, outside of the bounds of investigation and physical substantiation. People talking about Bigfoot have all described it as being some large, hairy primate: there is consensus on what he looks like, but that doesn't mean physical evidence is not required. Only so if you really want Bigfoot to exist, but that's just a conspiracy theory."Finally, documents and witness testimonies do corroborate and complement each other, and point to mass murder."The graves that are referenced in the documents/testimony: where are they? How many deceased within them?"Assessing ALL the available evidence, seeing the common points, and following them to where they lead."Jumping to conclusions. Lots of people have reached a consensus, documents talk about it, and they aren't here anymore=they had to have been killed here and in this quantity. How do we know this? Well the documents and testimony prove themselves. What physical evidence?"This, and not your inane insistence on. "Muh physical evidence""At least you admit to an aversion towards evidence, satirizing the inquiry because you can't substantiate your conspiracies. "No, it's not. I already explained how it can be falsified: explain how the documents came about, whether the Germans made them for shits and giggles, or were "faked" by some third party to frame them."Genetic fallacy: the validity of a claim operates independent of its source. Doesn't matter if I found them in a sewer printed in Japanese: is the claim truthful and verifiable, can you replicate it, and does it have physical evidence to corroborate it. If not, adios. Your claims cannot be replicated. You're asking for others to show how Bertrand's teapot doesn't exist: that's not how it works. Then when they ask for the physical evidence corroborating what the entire central theme has been about, you make jokes about it. Then you whine about banning people... because they don't debate honestly. When all it took was one inquiry into where the bodies are.

"Emotion has nothing to do with it, or at least, not all of it"It either does or it doesn't. You can't make appeals to emotion, but then get emotional. There is no middle ground. You either rely on evidence or resort to emotional tantrums. When you use insults, it shows that you have a vested interest in your conspiracy theories lacking physical evidence, which makes sense if you are biased. "have taken great pains to either provide evidence and explain how the historical method really works (quality)."How many died in the Holocaust? Okay, now of that number, how many bodies have been found? How many graves, how many bodies examined w/ archaeological investigations after the war? How many bodies were found and examined again? Given the manpower to assess how many were allegedly deceased, retracing the steps after the fact requires the same amount of cooperation, which was received. Especially when the majority of the graves were left intact. Germans didn't destroy everything, so there IS physical evidence. From: http://content.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2031066,00.html"They uncovered the remains of 16 bodies — including the skeletons of children, a lady's shoe and Romanian-army bullets from 1939 — but have since called a halt to the dig while they wait for rabbis to bless the site."Seems like the rabbis also have an aversion to analyzed evidence. But we know that at least 16 were killed because they exhumed the bodies, although it would have been easier to ascertain the cause had it been closer to the time of death. "According to the 1930 Census, there were 759,000 Jews in Romania before World War II. Historians estimate that 280,000 to 380,000 were killed by Romanian forces during the war, mainly in the areas of Moldova and Ukraine they occupied as part of the German thrust into the Soviet Union. Today there are fewer than 10,000 Jews living in Romania."Lol, even the historians have to rely on fallacious arguments from silence.How can you berate physical evidence by satirizing it, then backtrack and claim it actually IS contained in the jigsaw puzzle.

"So, you are gutless. Thanks for confirming that."Let's extend your own line of reasoning to you."You don't want to come to 'insert medium of conversation' because I find it hard to post links (even though you don't)? Wow, you are 'insert ad-hom here' because this emotional tantrum is relevant to the topic at-hand; you not wanting to do what I say makes you a 'insert ad-hom here'!" Not an argument. Try substantiating your conspiracy theories. How many bodies were exhumed in the graves?

-"Assessing ALL the available evidence, seeing the common points, and following them to where they lead."Jumping to conclusions. -Actually reviewing evidence and coming to the logical conclusion is not"jumping to conclusions". Just the opposite I would say. The dick dismissing events because there's allegedly no Physical evidence is.

-This, and not your inane insistence on. "Muh physical evidence""At least you admit to an aversion towards evidence,-Not what I said. Here's what I actually said:-the Dick has done nothing but spout gibberish and repeat himself ad nauseum, demanding "muh physical evidence" and dismissing it when cited and ignoring the explanation that "muh physical evidence" is just one piece of the jigsaw, instead of the whole jigsaw.(quantity)-Quantity over quality. Repeating your hysterical hollering doesn't help your case.

-You're asking for others to show how Bertrand's teapot doesn't exist-Genocide, mass murder, and body incineration all occur within the natural world and are and have been easily observed, unlike a teapot floating between earth and Mar, so this is another of your irrelevant straw men. 70 years of historical and legal research have established thr facts. "Bertrand's teapot" in this case has been proven, and you have yet to provide actual evidence against it: nothing except hollering and straw men.

-People talking about Bigfoot have all described it as being some large, hairy primate: there is consensus on what he looks like, but that doesn't mean physical evidence is not required. Only so if you really want Bigfoot to exist, but that's just a conspiracy theory-Again, we are talking about mass murder, genocide and body incineration, which all occur in the natural world and are ordinary claims, a mythical creature like bigfoot does not fall into this category. Just like the Dick's "god" analogy, Bigfoot himself did not testify openly about his actions, whereas Nazi Criminals did. Bigfoot nor his government did not tally his actions not write internal progress reports about his actions. Just another brainless analogy from the brainless dick.

And as for conspiracy theories, the dick has no right to bitch about them. Not after his disproven conspiracy theories about the IMT and his ignorance of the actual policies that shaped them. Dick.

>> Dear Statistical, correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think there's any single document that proves the Holocaust death toll. As far as I know, it's population statistics that are used for that.

No, indeed not; the Korherr Report comes closest AFAIK but it is partial in a number of ways, e.g., time.

>> The EG reports that Joseph bitches about actually prove the intent to kill Jews for being Jews, with the death tallies merely being incidental, while the SK1005 reports were about attempts to dispose of the bodies, rather than the death toll. Is my understanding correct?

The EMs report on the operations of the EGS, including extermination of Jews, describing locations of operations, success, intent, procedures, difficulties, etc as well as numbers. Again, because they deal with killings by EGs - and not all killings by EGs - one cannot add numbers from EMs and come to a complete tally.

>> Also, since the docs are usually used to indicate or prove killing intent/genocidal policy, I'm not really seeing how an alleged discrepancy between a figure in a document and the "bodies exhumed" would cast doubt on the latter.

Discrepancies by themselves, esp under the conditions and using the procedures of recording and later study we know about, are to be expected.

However, for the purpose of refuting a claim that no German documents refer to something, showing German documents referring to it is not irrelevant.">> Mentioning that Graf is wrong because the documents are German, not Soviet, but not actually citing a follow-up investigation into the documents' assertions into the graves is a genetic fallacy as the basis for truth is rooted in the source of the claims, not the content/physical evidence.

This is nonsensical. The initial point was that Graf’s claim that wartime documents don’t exist to confirm the existence of SK 1005. Sergey showed, and others have as well, that this assertion is false. A follow-up investigation about the graves has nothing to do with this.

>> Original point is replacing one genetic fallacy with another.

“Genetic fallacy” is not a magic wand you can wave to dismiss anything exposing your illogic. You look sillier and sillier waving it.

>> Weren't you the one who sourced me to some random skeptic community website?

The links were not random but included a list of sources for Ponary and Babi Yar. Which you’ve not dealt with.

>> The same ones you are purporting to be self-evident, messages between officials speaking of exhumation and whatnot.

Since I didn’t say any documents are self-evident, your answer is intentionally or not unhelpful.

>> Deliberately obfuscating the point. The point wasn't related to searching on google, but the source that I cited about exhuming the dead after the Rwandan genocide.

Actually, my point was clear. I am well aware, as you should know from what I’ve written here and linked you to, about exhumations and investigations of mass graves as one element of how we understand these sorts of events, but far from the fundamental way as you keep trying to have it.

>> Yet you can't give me a number as to how many were exhumed when "studying" the graves.

So what? The role of SK 1005 has been explained to you and the SK 1005 team’s work at Ponary makes later body counts irrelevant.

I cited the wide range of evidence specifically to move you beyond your myopia.

WHAT IS YOUR EXPLANATION FOR THE RANGE OF EVIDENCE SHOWING MASS MURDER AT PONARY? That is the key question you keep trying to obfuscate.

>> Yes, making the personal incredulity fallacy. It just "not being likely to have occurred" isn't an argument: neither is our entire existence "likely".

I didn’t write any such thing. Stop making things up.

>> We can test it right now: how many bodies were exhumed in follow-up investigations?

Non sequitur.

>> Glossing past the emotional outburst, how much physical evidence of said graves (raised by the documents) has been found when investigating the claims?

Hardly emotional to describe your attempts to obfuscate as what they are.

ARE YOU NOT FAMILIAR WITH THE DOCUMENTATION I CITED? One of the reports concluded, “Given the huge amount of burned human bones scattered on the surface of the whole area of the camp, unburned bodies of executed people that were found and witness testimonies, the total number of corpses is estimated to be no less than 100,000.” The actual number of bodies exhumed in the late 1940s was fewer as the exhumations were a sample and on account of the previous effective destruction of evidence.

>> Quantity does not override quality.

You are mischaracterizing what I wrote. The method I explained to you is also described by Whewell as a “consilience of Inductions” which is not about quantity but about independent sources and observations of different classes reinforcing one another.

>> If you can't even find the graves and exhume the alleged millions, then the documents lack physical evidence.

But remnants of graves and remains as described in the contemporaneous documents have been found, which you’ve been told repeatedly.

>> ”Like a brainless parrot you do repeat yourself."And you come from the skeptic community, yet you cannot control your emotions and have these odd emotional outbursts.

I do not “ come from the skeptic community,” and I will describe what I read despite your not liking it. That you simply repeat abstract objections and refuse to engage the evidence you've been cited is an obfuscatory tactic.

So again, to move this somewhere, starting with one case where mass shootings occurred and a Nazi cover-up ensued, WHAT IS YOUR EXPLANATION FOR THE RANGE OF EVIDENCE SHOWING MASS MURDER AT PONARY?

-Yes, making the personal incredulity fallacy. It just "not being likely to have occurred" isn't an argument: neither is our entire existence "likely".

I didn’t write any such thing. Stop making things up.-Lol, Joseph's a real dick isn't he, SM? He keeps on equating mass murder and body incineration with God, bigfoot or whatever, implying that he finds it hard to believe them despite the fact that mass murder and body disposal are easily observable and provable. What a dick.

"Actually reviewing evidence and coming to the logical conclusion is not"jumping to conclusions". Just the opposite I would say. The dick dismissing events because there's allegedly no Physical evidence is."Cite how many bodies were exhumed or even a measly attempt at finding the millions who died. Where are the millions? "-the Dick has done nothing but spout gibberish and repeat himself ad nauseum, demanding "muh physical evidence" and dismissing it when cited and ignoring the explanation that "muh physical evidence" is just one piece of the jigsaw, instead of the whole jigsaw.(quantity)-Quantity over quality. Repeating your hysterical hollering doesn't help your case."Then you admit that physical evidence is but "a piece" of the puzzle. Where is your physical evidence? How many bodies were ever found? "Genocide, mass murder, and body incineration all occur within the natural world and are and have been easily observed, unlike a teapot floating between earth and Mar, so this is another of your irrelevant straw men. 70 years of historical and legal research have established thr facts. "Bertrand's teapot" in this case has been proven, and you have yet to provide actual evidence against it: nothing except hollering and straw men."Because a phenomenon has previously been observed does not mean that we can assess its existence based on previous occurrences. Not an argument. You're right, genocide has been confirmed in cases like Rwanda where they actually followed up and exhumed the bodies: no such investigative follow-up has been conducted into the Holocaust to ascertain the location and details (i.e. bodies within graves) of mass graves. How many bodies were actually found? "Again, we are talking about mass murder, genocide and body incineration, which all occur in the natural world and are ordinary claims,"Claiming millions upon millions of people died, then pointing to "general consensus=truth", "documents contain sources that self-affirm content=truth", and arguments from silence, then it isn't an ordinary claim if you can't even find any figure close to the death toll put forth. "And as for conspiracy theories, the dick has no right to bitch about them. Not after his disproven conspiracy theories about the IMT and his ignorance of the actual policies that shaped them."You're right, there is nothing wrong with the Ministry of Truth deciding prior to the presentation of information what is and isn't acceptable. Neither is the dissent within the ranks: all normal.

"This is nonsensical. The initial point was that Graf’s claim that wartime documents don’t exist to confirm the existence of SK 1005. Sergey showed, and others have as well, that this assertion is false. A follow-up investigation about the graves has nothing to do with this."Graf is incorrect because the source does not necessarily mean something is wrong. Of course the Soviets had a conflict of interest, but the Soviets can state "2+2=4" to the Germans: that doesn't make it wrong. What actually matters is if the content of the claim can be proven to exist in totality and is logically sound. Likewise, by mere virtue that the documents are German doesn't mean that the content of the claim is validated. What matters is if there is evidence for what is being asserted; that is, can the mass graves (of which "probably two-thirds" were left intact, according to Rob who actually said it was Sergey in the earlier post before they shut it down) be found/bodies be exhumed?"“Genetic fallacy” is not a magic wand you can wave to dismiss anything exposing your illogic. You look sillier and sillier waving it."So besides the mere fact that the documents are German: what other physical evidence affirms the content of the claim raised within the documents? Where are the mass graves? Can a single one be found, how many bodies were exhumed? How many millions have been found (if you claim millions died). "No, deal with the citations you’ve been given."You haven't sourced anything that I can remember besides the link to some forum. Yet I have typed out my response and refrained from ad-hominem insults, but when asked to provide evidence (because I'm conversing with five or six people at the same time), you divert and let me know to "find it yourself". So I went above and found it. This is what you sourced me: http://www.skepticforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=39&t=25822&p=498470#p498470http://www.skepticforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=39&t=25822&start=40#p474883Both of those links source (including but not limited to) documents and witness testimony. Outside of the source of the documents, what physical evidence exists to corroborate the claims raised? Specifically, all the documents referencing mass graves or shootings of hundreds of thousands: where are the bodies? They were not all destroyed; if that were the case, then you are admitting that there is literally no physical blood trail, so to speak, and only documentary evidence.Testimony raises probable suspicion, but is not enough to arrive at guilt. Appealing to a general consensus isn't an argument. "Non sequitur. Honesty and numbers of people replying are unrelated."Intellectual honesty is not related to debate and debate tactics? Not an argument. People involved actually is relevant. Generally, you'd have one person speaking to another. But you all enjoy piling on, yet not a single one of you has been able to tie in the central theme all the documents are referencing: the location and validity of said mass graves. If the entire world testifies against 'x' existing, that doesn't make it truth. General consensus only works so long as there is physical evidence to affirm what is being claimed.

"I did."The issue arose because I could not keep track of everybody, or posts you'd made after twenty more had been posted."The links were not random but included a list of sources for Ponary and Babi Yar. Which you’ve not dealt with."Documentary evidence is not self-affirming: where is the physical evidence to corroborate it? How many graves were found and how many were exhumed? If you claim millions died, then even doing one-tenth of the work (and assuming Germans, on the brink of defeat, were capable of destroying the majority of the graves, which is admittedly incorrect) would yield hundreds of thousands of corpses. "Since I didn’t say any documents are self-evident, your answer is intentionally or not unhelpful."They are unfalsifiable, you can't provide the evidence for the central theme. If telegrams speak of millions dying, find the bodies instead of relying on the source of the document being self-incriminating (source does not validate/invalidate a claim, only content). Kind of sad that this basic reasoning has to be explained to somebody who frequents a "skeptic" blog and has over 10k posts. If I catch a stream of letters outlining your intention to cover up/commit mass murder, I investigate the location in question and dig up the bodies to find your death toll. I don't take the document at face value and use the fact that it's from 'insert source here', so it's validated. Nor would I appeal to the people who testify against you: all of that creates an alibi but that requires at least a measly effort into the location of the graves to find the deceased."Actually, my point was clear. I am well aware, as you should know from what I’ve written here and linked you to, about exhumations and investigations of mass graves as one element of how we understand these sorts of events, but far from the fundamental way as you keep trying to have it."They are the base of all the evidence. The graves do not depend on the documents: the documents, witness testimony, and all other pieces of evidence all reference the mass graves/bodies. By definition, they form the base or core of all the statements made in the documents.

"So what? The role of SK 1005 has been explained to you and the SK 1005 team’s work at Ponary makes later body counts irrelevant.

I cited the wide range of evidence specifically to move you beyond your myopia.

WHAT IS YOUR EXPLANATION FOR THE RANGE OF EVIDENCE SHOWING MASS MURDER AT PONARY? That is the key question you keep trying to obfuscate."Later body counts are irrelevant? Great, then that means they took at least a tenth of effort to find even a fraction of the millions who died and still came up with hundreds of thousands. So how many bodies were exhumed and examined earlier? There is no wide range of evidence. There are appeals to the people (general consensus must be indicative of the truth) and documents (that, rightfully so, raise justifiable curiosity and paint nefarious intention, but not outright guilt). The central theme referenced in both pieces of evidence is the mass graves. Asking about how many were found/the bodies that were exhumed is a logical step. Unless it has already been found at the same time as the documents/testimony was gathered.

> if you stated earlier that "probably two-thirds of the graves" were left intact

Already answered: "You're fantasizing and ascribing to me what I never wrote."

> Aversion to substantiating your claims and admitting that they are unfalsifiable because the graves (that the documents reference) have been destroyed.

Already answered:

"As I wrote, there is sufficient evidence both for the killing and the cover-up."

"Had the Nazis not destroyed the BY graves, they would have constituted sufficient evidence for the massacre. I.e. no other evidence would have to be adduced. But they wouldn't have constituted necessary evidence - we could still prove the massacre with other sufficient evidence."

"Further investigation of mass graves or sites of incineration, though *recommended*, is not *necessary* for establishing the fact of the events, because the evidence adduced so far has been *sufficient*."

> At least you admit you have no physical evidence of the bodies that are claimed to have been executed by the millions, and I don't mean whole bodies intact: not even follow-up investigations to find remnants.

Already answered:

"And? How is this is relevant to the evidence we do have being sufficient? See my comment at http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2017/05/busted-jurgen-graf-caught-lying-again.html?showComment=1494311328175#c732152450459813630"

> Documents are not self-evident of that which they claim to be purporting, otherwise you are admitting the resorting to an unfalsifiable claim.

German wartime documents are sufficient primary evidence of the mass-killing claims.

> Appealing to the majority simply because they claim to have seen it occur=it did occur.

There is no appeal to the majority.

> Testimony is not self-evident, too.

Testimonies should be critically examined and tested, and they have been by historians and judges.

The cumulative documentary, demographic, testimonial and physical evidence is sufficient.

> You're more honest than I thought; at least you are admitting that all physical evidence was destroyed and cannot be provided (same evidence the documents allege).

Only in what concerns Babiy Yar, since that was the particular topic under discussion.

And yet we still have sufficient evidence that it happened.

> So courts accept genetic fallacies (documents are true because the source overrides the content, which was all destroyed... oh, but this isn't unfalsifiable, trust me). Good to know.

Courts accept the court methodology, to which you have already appealed so you can't take it back.

> This assumes that courts are willing to deliberately lower the standard of evidence when all other evidence has been destroyed. The logical question would be into the graves to see how many can be found. Just the same response after every tragedy.

You have already accepted the court methodology above: "Try using only eyewitness testimony, euphemisms and innuendo, and documents alleging crimes committed (only in the third person) in a court of law and see how far it gets you."

The answer is, it gets me to my current position.

> Argumentum ad populum.

You obviously don't know what the term means.

> Quantity does not override quality.

Nobody claimed otherwise. However different types of evidence can complement and reinforce each other. Cumulatively they can have more evidentiary and informational value than individually.

> Lots of people saying something happened doesn't make it truth, by default.

Testimonies are a type of evidence, the more testimonies by credible eyewitnesses, the stronger the evidence.

> Documents are not self-evident if you cannot replicate what they allege

German wartime documents are sufficient evidence regardless of whether one can replicate what they allege.

> Presupposing that it is factual information without actually providing physical evidence is not an argument.

Physical evidence is not necessary when there is other sufficient evidence.

> Evidence is evidence is evidence. There are no half-truths: only what is truthful, you can replicate, and is unfalsifiable.

You obviously don't understand what sufficient evidence means and what necessary evidence means. You should probably take a basic logic course. What you wrote about the sufficient and the necessary evidence is simply not meaningful. It doesn't result in a meaningful statement.

> The documents all reference the physical evidence, which you cannot provide.

The cumulative documentary and testimonial evidence is sufficient, therefore the physical evidence is not necessary, therefore I don't have to provide it for the claim to be proven.

> Therefore you are making an unfalsifiable claim

You don't understand the meaning of "unfalsifiable" either. There are numerous ways to potentially falsify the claim in question.

E.g.: proving that the documents are forgeries; proving that the witnesses lied about the core of the events; proving that the events couldn't have happened or didn't happen as alleged.

Indeed, John Ball tried to falsify the BY massacre with an appeal to an aerial photo. His argument failed because the content of the argument was bunk. However it is conceivable that a series of aerial or other photos is found which document the state of the ravine day by day, e.g. during the exhumation and incineration period, and suppose that the photos show the pristine ravine with no pyres or no places where the pyres could be (shadows etc.). The incineration claim would be falsified and the massacre claim would be at the very least put into great doubt, if not falsified outright.Or suppose you find a genuine secret Allied plan to falsify the massacre claims. Or you use some technology that can prove, even under meters of dirt, that the 1940s earth layers in the ravine were undisturbed and are incompatible with there having been mass graves there. Etc., etc., etc.

> and resorting to lowering the bar of evidence to find guilt

It is merely your opinion. The cumulative documentary and testimonial evidence is sufficient. Look up the word if you don't know what it means.

> I will repost what I wrote on the black death issue

I'm not interested in the black death issue. Answer my questions:

"- the historicity of Julius Caesar and of his murder (we don't have the body to establish either);- Stalin's mass killings (we don't have the absolute majority of bodies and have to rely on documents and other evidence);

"I didn’t write any such thing. Stop making things up."I think that was a response to the Prussian guy. I most likely got you two mixed up. This is what I mean when I mention "piling on". "Non sequitur."So the basis of the actions executed by the Soviets in exhuming the bodies postwar, which has already been ceded to have occurred earlier (maybe not by you), is a non-sequitur, too. Any inquiry into physical evidence is now a non-sequitur, as in a non-sequitur just like: "I have documents that show you murdered this man, here is a warrant to search this property. Nah, that's a non-sequitur, the documents whose source affirms my worldview and everybody's general consensus is enough. Take me in officer."I might as well have just claimed that two and two make four, that's another non-sequitur as well. When speaking of mass graves, inquiring about the location and details of mass graves is, by the definition of a non-sequitur, the next logical step.Otherwise the Soviets were very illogical after the war. Didn't they know the graves didn't matter at all; all that matters is documents referencing the graves.

"Hardly emotional to describe your attempts to obfuscate as what they are.

ARE YOU NOT FAMILIAR WITH THE DOCUMENTATION I CITED? One of the reports concluded, “Given the huge amount of burned human bones scattered on the surface of the whole area of the camp, unburned bodies of executed people that were found and witness testimonies, the total number of corpses is estimated to be no less than 100,000.” The actual number of bodies exhumed in the late 1940s was fewer as the exhumations were a sample and on account of the previous effective destruction of evidence."Funny how you dismiss the emotional claim, but then go on to use all caps. Are you yelling in real life, too? Take a chill pill, just source the mass grave exhumation and be done with it to affirm the millions death toll. That is excellent, you have made a great claim. The investigation found that there at least 100k bodies after exhuming the graves. We can just take that at face value for the time being. The point I want to make is that you have now established the mass murder of 100k people. "You are mischaracterizing what I wrote. The method I explained to you is also described by Whewell as a “consilience of Inductions” which is not about quantity but about independent sources and observations of different classes reinforcing one another."If the testimony of the entire planet converges to a single point, especially given the sample size and language barriers removing the capability of forgery/establishing independent claims, that still does not make the point that is reached truth, by default. If everybody claims 'x' and it is gathered as I described, that doesn't mean 'x' exists: you have only established a general consensus on the alleged existence of 'x'. "But remnants of graves and remains as described in the contemporaneous documents have been found, which you’ve been told repeatedly."The 100k figure was just put forth by you and we have established that as truth, because the investigation into the graves found the physical information corroborating the documents and testimony. "I do not “ come from the skeptic community,” and I will describe what I read despite your not liking it. That you simply repeat abstract objections and refuse to engage the evidence you've been cited is an obfuscatory tactic.

So again, to move this somewhere, starting with one case where mass shootings occurred and a Nazi cover-up ensued, WHAT IS YOUR EXPLANATION FOR THE RANGE OF EVIDENCE SHOWING MASS MURDER AT PONARY?"So you came from here to the skeptic community? Not sure what you mean. It's not really abstract, by definition. I'm pretty clear: where is the physical evidence that the documents purport to have existed? We found 100k, which was lowered after the fact. Let's build our way up to converge on the death toll. Should pass at least two million, as the Nazis did not cover everything up. The range of evidence is documents and testimony referencing graves that, when mentioned, everybody gets upset at because the central theme the pieces of evidence are related to is not actually a part of the discussion, even though the documents are.

"Lol, Joseph's a real dick isn't he, SM? He keeps on equating mass murder and body incineration with God, bigfoot or whatever, implying that he finds it hard to believe them despite the fact that mass murder and body disposal are easily observable and provable. What a dick."Very emotional, lacking in substantiation of claims. I already admitted that the likely point was the prussian guy who I mistook for the mechanic guy. The analogy (emphasis on analogy, not equivalence) is sound when they both contain appeals to the people/general consensus=truth. There are more documents outlining the "existence" of God(s) throughout human history, but mere documents (without follow-up investigations to substantiate what is raised as the central theme within said documents) don't validate/invalidate claims raised within the documents.

Has anyone claimed that it was or have you just constructed a strawman?

BTW, "Negroid" used to say "not an argument" in all the inappropriate places.

Sergey, please don't insult "Negroid" like that, though he did deserve and continues to deserve every little heap of abuse thrown at him. "Negroid" at least tried, like we said, to refute the claims of Mass cremation by claiming (falsely) that it was impossible to burn bodies as described. I.E. like you said, he was at least willing to engage in a (false) discussion by attempting to point out (false) problems in the historical record.

This Joseph fellow is just a tool who keeps shifting the Burden of proof. "Negroid" was leagues better than him, but that's really not saying much.

"Has anyone claimed that it was or have you just constructed a strawman?

BTW, "Negroid" used to say "not an argument" in all the inappropriate places."Then why even mention non-arguments? And another genetic fallacy, as if the source of a claim determines the validity of the claim in any way."Already answered: "We'll never know and it's irrelevant to establishing historicity.""We will never know if the death toll is substantiated by physical evidence (i.e. examining mass graves and exhuming bodies)? Then we agree. "Already answered: "You're fantasizing and ascribing to me what I never wrote.""Go to the other post; Rob says you said it. I'm repeating what he said."Already answered:

"As I wrote, there is sufficient evidence both for the killing and the cover-up."

"Had the Nazis not destroyed the BY graves, they would have constituted sufficient evidence for the massacre. I.e. no other evidence would have to be adduced. But they wouldn't have constituted necessary evidence - we could still prove the massacre with other sufficient evidence."

"Further investigation of mass graves or sites of incineration, though *recommended*, is not *necessary* for establishing the fact of the events, because the evidence adduced so far has been *sufficient*.""Documents are not self-affirming and general consensus=/=truth. Where is the physical evidence that all the pieces of evidence are referencing? Oh, that's right; we can "never know". At least you are honest enough to admit to making unfalsifiable claims. Then you say that it can be falsified if the documents were forgeries: another genetic fallacy, is what is raised by the documents truthful or not? Doesn't matter where the documents came from, where is the evidence that points to the mass graves?

"-the Dick has done nothing but spout gibberish and repeat himself ad nauseum, demanding "muh physical evidence" and dismissing it when cited and ignoring the explanation that "muh physical evidence" is just one piece of the jigsaw, instead of the whole jigsaw.(quantity)-Quantity over quality. Repeating your hysterical hollering doesn't help your case."Then you admit that physical evidence is but "a piece" of the puzzle. Where is your physical evidence? How many bodies were ever found? -

Lol, stupid dick. Dumb dick doesn't understand the metaphor for how puzzles work. Even if a piece of the puzzle is missing, you can still deduce the content or the image of the puzzle from the remaining pieces. Puzzles are too complicated for the Dick's simple mind; he should go back to sucking his thumb.

And again, The only one engaging in "Quantity over Quality" is you. Sergey, Statistical and I have explained how the historical method works, and how real courts (not your fantasies) assess and follow evidence: Quality. You keep on hollering about "muh physical evidence" and ignore explanations for how evidence is actually assessed, and how other evidence is just as capable as proving facts, and that "muh physical evidence" is not absolutely necessary: Quantity. The only one engaging in "Quantity over Quality" is the Dick.

""And? How is this is relevant to the evidence we do have being sufficient?"So the Soviets exhuming the bodies post-war, as the mechanic guy mentioned, is also irrelevant. Why do authorities attempt to find the deceased, or any blood trail (of physical evidence)? Sufficient to prove whatever you can find and nothing more. If you only find 1 million, then you don't claim ten million. "German wartime documents are sufficient primary evidence of the mass-killing claims."German documents are sufficient evidence because they are sufficient evidence? On what basis are they affirmed? Because they are German? Why even mention the source? What matters is if what is claimed can be replicated and proven to exist with physical evidence of (in this case) mass graves."There is no appeal to the majority."So you toss out the testimony."Testimonies should be critically examined and tested, and they have been by historians and judges.

The cumulative documentary, demographic, testimonial and physical evidence is sufficient."General consensus on 'x' does not mean 'x' exists. Documents are not self-affirming and require follow-up to actually investigate what is being asserted, not to be taken at face value just because you like the source.Demographic shifts do not equate to mass murder: argument from silence fallacy."Only in what concerns Babiy Yar, since that was the particular topic under discussion.

And yet we still have sufficient evidence that it happened."So they never even stepped towards the mass graves in an effort to investigate the details of the deceased or the graves themselves, then? It is, after all, not related."Courts accept the court methodology, to which you have already appealed so you can't take it back."Courts also inquire about the details of the deceased and do not sit idly by because examining the dead is "too hard" or something. Appealing to some general consensus and getting upset when somebody claims "hey, let's see if the assertion made in this document is corroborated by the evidence found at the location discussed" is not becoming of a court of law.

Do you want to moderate what we say here? Because you're the one that will be moderated if this re-occurs. Don't test my patience.

> And another genetic fallacy, as if the source of a claim determines the validity of the claim in any way.

This again is a meaningless jumble of words having no relation whatsoever to what has been written.

> We will never know if the death toll is substantiated by physical evidence (i.e. examining mass graves and exhuming bodies)?

We'll never know how many were exhumed.

> Go to the other post; Rob says you said it. I'm repeating what he said.

You claimed I wrote that. Even after being corrected.

> Documents are not self-affirming

Already answered:

"German wartime documents are sufficient evidence regardless of whether one can replicate what they allege."

"The cumulative documentary, demographic, testimonial and physical evidence is sufficient."

> Where is the physical evidence that all the pieces of evidence are referencing?

Some of it is still in the ground. Some of it has been discovered (the Soviets exhumed quite a few graves, archeological investigations have been performed in the extermination camps). Some of it is lost forever.

None of which matters to the issue of the historicity of the events in question.

> At least you are honest enough to admit to making unfalsifiable claims.

You obviously don't understand the meaning of "unfalsifiable".

> Then you say that it can be falsified if the documents were forgeries: another genetic fallacy

You obviously don't understand the meaning of "genetic fallacy".

> is what is raised by the documents truthful or not?

Sure.

> Doesn't matter where the documents came from, where is the evidence that points to the mass graves?

Already answered:

"German wartime documents are sufficient evidence regardless of whether one can replicate what they allege."

"The cumulative documentary, demographic, testimonial and physical evidence is sufficient."

"You have already accepted the court methodology above: "Try using only eyewitness testimony, euphemisms and innuendo, and documents alleging crimes committed (only in the third person) in a court of law and see how far it gets you."

The answer is, it gets me to my current position."Are you familiar with the concept of a rhetorical statement? Doesn't seem to be the case. Must be that "take everything literally" that you'd be able to obfuscate euphemisms and innuendo for mass murder when the body count cannot even be ascertained because "meh, not really relevant". And you get upset when I mention an aversion to evidence."You obviously don't know what the term means."Not an argument. I already set forward the definition I used. You have to submit an alternative, not just express your distaste at its usage. Just because a general consensus on 'x' exists does not mean 'x' itself is truthful."Nobody claimed otherwise. However different types of evidence can complement and reinforce each other. Cumulatively they can have more evidentiary and informational value than individually."You just did. You just said that the more evidence there is (by different types), the more value they have. This does nothing to actually mention the content of the claim in question, only that there is different types/lots of it."Testimonies are a type of evidence, the more testimonies by credible eyewitnesses, the stronger the evidence."I never said testimony isn't evidence, I said that testimony isn't enough to convict and that just because there is a general consensus, that doesn't equate to truth. Credible as in having been there and in stable mental condition, to name a few logical requirements? How can they determine that the person who is testifying is there? Do we just believe that they were? It almost seems as if some physical evidence or an alibi is required to pinpoint their location..."German wartime documents are sufficient evidence regardless of whether one can replicate what they allege."At least you admit to dismissing the scientific method in terms of establishing truths grounded in reality. Just because a German wrote it doesn't make it true/false. Just because they stated figures doesn't mean it happened, where is the physical evidence for the figures they put forth? If that isn't related, then why did they record them to begin with? Why is the record-keeping process of the dead important?"Physical evidence is not necessary when there is other sufficient evidence."It isn't sufficient evidence to prove guilt. General consensus=/=truth, documents cannot prove the mass graves mentioned just because you like the source/it was stated.

"You obviously don't understand what sufficient evidence means and what necessary evidence means. You should probably take a basic logic course. What you wrote about the sufficient and the necessary evidence is simply not meaningful. It doesn't result in a meaningful statement."And appealing to a general consensus is not sufficient in any way as it does not prove guilt, just that many people believe in something that allegedly occurred. Cannot replicate what they state, then you cannot prove guilt if the millions upon millions of dead are nowhere to be found."The cumulative documentary and testimonial evidence is sufficient, therefore the physical evidence is not necessary, therefore I don't have to provide it for the claim to be proven."You really are honest in admitting an aversion to substantiating the central theme raised by all of your evidence. Everything points to the one thing that doesn't exist. Lots of documents referencing mass murder=/=proof of mass murder if you cannot find the graves of the millions dead.Just because there are reports of the dead in a morgue does not mean that they all died just because it is claimed by the morgue/it is written down. Actually look at the bodies themselves to corroborate what is asserted by the reports."I'm not interested in the black death issue. Answer my questions:"The "black death issue" relates directly to your response in that it addressed the deliberate misrepresentation of the tech level at the time, the era in question, the natural limitations versus self-imposed/ideological, and the logical pitfalls (as it is all an estimation game and, by definition, an argument from silence). Keep on diverting, though, I'm sure that will substantiate your conspiracies.

> So the Soviets exhuming the bodies post-war, as the mechanic guy mentioned, is also irrelevant.

It is irrelevant to the issue of historicity.

It does refute the claim that no graves were found, but such a claim is only raided by the deniers who reject the otherwise sufficient cumulative documentary, demographic, testimonial and physical evidence.

> Why do authorities attempt to find the deceased, or any blood trail (of physical evidence)?

Already answered: "Further investigation of mass graves or sites of incineration, though *recommended*, is not *necessary* for establishing the fact of the events, because the evidence adduced so far has been *sufficient*."

Note the emphasized "recommended": more information is always good; investigating graves adds information and is good.

However this has nothing to do with the already available evidence being sufficient.

> If you only find 1 million, then you don't claim ten million.

It depends. If 10M were claimed to have been concentrated in 1 particular place and there is no evidence of body disposal - i.e. if the grave was claimed to have been isolated all along, then finding 1M instead of 10M does refute 10M. Basically because we are dealing with a "closed system".

The Holocaust mass graves are an "open system": there is sufficient evidence of attempted body disposal, hence we'll never be able to find all the bodies.

But we don't have to either, since the other evidence we do have is already sufficient in regard to the historicity of the events.

> German documents are sufficient evidence because they are sufficient evidence?

No, German wartime documents are sufficient evidence because they were written by the persons who were in a position to possess the information that we see in the documents. If e.g. an Einsatzgruppe says that it killed 30K+ Jews in Kiev, it is prima facie a credible statement unless proven otherwise.

> What matters is if what is claimed can be replicated and proven to exist with physical evidence of (in this case) mass graves.

Not an argument.

> So you toss out the testimony.

Incorrect. I pointed out that it's not an appeal to majority. It isn't.

> General consensus on 'x' does not mean 'x' exists.

Nobody has mentioned general consensus.

> Documents are not self-affirming and require follow-up to actually investigate what is being asserted, not to be taken at face value just because you like the source.

German wartime documents are primary source and sufficient evidence, and this has nothing to do with subjective opinions.

> Demographic shifts do not equate to mass murder: argument from silence fallacy.

They do in some cases. For example, 800000 Jews were deported to Treblinka. Had they been moved further than Treblinka, there would have existed mountains of evidence for their survival of Treblinka. Since we don't find the *expected* mountains of evidence, they did not survive Treblinka.

>>"Only in what concerns Babiy Yar, since that was the particular topic under discussion.>>And yet we still have sufficient evidence that it happened."

> So they never even stepped towards the mass graves in an effort to investigate the details of the deceased or the graves themselves, then? It is, after all, not related.

Your comment stands in no recognizable relation to my comment.

> Courts also inquire about the details of the deceased and do not sit idly by because examining the dead is "too hard" or something.

The courts have accepted the evidence of the Holocaust. Now that you are forced to admit this, you want to throw out the courts too.

"Has anyone claimed that it was or have you just constructed a strawman?"Insults are not relevant to the topic at hand, control your emotions. You sound like a grown man but you act like a hormonal teenager. Take a chill pill or something instead of obsessing over genitalia. "Even if a piece of the puzzle is missing, you can still deduce the content or the image of the puzzle from the remaining pieces"Only if 99% of the puzzle has been solved. You cannot assert a death toll if you cannot substantiate it. Documents referencing death tolls, then adding them up (or, worse yet, just looking at Jews before and after the war then equating that to mass murder), is not evidence for the dead as you rely on the documents as authority when, in reality, they are to be corroborated with the physical accounts (that are plentiful if millions are claimed)."Sergey, Statistical and I have explained how the historical method works, and how real courts (not your fantasies) assess and follow evidence: Quality. You keep on hollering about "muh physical evidence" and ignore explanations for how evidence is actually assessed"Any court that uses the satirized "muh physical evidence" is now a fantasy court, then. At least you admit your aversion to evidence. Thanks for being honest, lol.

"Do you want to moderate what we say here? Because you're the one that will be moderated if this re-occurs. Don't test my patience."Threats are not arguments. You know I can just make another account, right? Moderation does not silence inquiry even if it hurts your feelings."This again is a meaningless jumble of words having no relation whatsoever to what has been written."You're right, your genetic fallacies are irrelevant as they are not logical by any stretch of the imagination. It's irrelevant to even mention if the documents were German or not: what matters is the content of the claim. Where are the millions upon millions who are claimed to have died? "We'll never know how many were exhumed."Jumping from nathan-tier hormonal emotion to absolute honesty in admitting the pitfalls of your assertion. Then all your death tolls are estimations not backed by physical evidence. "You claimed I wrote that. Even after being corrected."I said Rob said you said it, not me. Robby boy is the one who says you said it, he corrected me. Take it up with him.""German wartime documents are sufficient evidence regardless of whether one can replicate what they allege."

"The cumulative documentary, demographic, testimonial and physical evidence is sufficient.""Appealing to a general consensus is not equivalent to truth. Any document written is not truthful, by default. You must assess the content of the claim in question: i.e., how many bodies were found?"Some of it is still in the ground. Some of it has been discovered (the Soviets exhumed quite a few graves, archeological investigations have been performed in the extermination camps). Some of it is lost forever."The first part cannot be claimed until it is found. How do you know it is in the ground if you don't know where they are/in what quantity? What is 'some'? Be more specific. The Soviet figures found are what you can accurately state as truth. The rest is not evidence because it cannot even be found.'You obviously don't understand the meaning of "unfalsifiable".'Including "well, some are in the ground, so that means they died" is unfalsifiable because we cannot prove you wrong, we just have to take what you say as truth by virtue of other bodies being found. There is no evidence for the claim. "You obviously don't understand the meaning of "genetic fallacy"."Insisting on German documents when you berate Graf for doing the same towards alleged Soviet documents is a genetic fallacy: content over source."Sure."Not very convincing. How many bodies were exhumed? Do you admit to no physical evidence proving the millions death toll?"It does refute the claim that no graves were found, but such a claim is only raided by the deniers who reject the otherwise sufficient cumulative documentary, demographic, testimonial and physical evidence."Already answered. Argument from silence fallacy, appeal to general consensus, already admitted there is no physical evidence for the millions claim (only what you find, which is thousands), documents' sources do not prove the content (or that it is just an assertion).

Now that you know that the Holocaust has been proven in courts (among other places), you're forced to backpedal on the acceptance of courts as the golden standard of truth-seeking.

> And you get upset when I mention an aversion to evidence.

Already answered: "The mass murder, burial and/or subsequent exhumation and incineration of most bodies has been proven beyond the reasonable doubt by the cumulative documentary, demographic, testimonial and physical evidence."

> Not an argument.

A statement of fact.

> I already set forward the definition I used.

Here is the definition: "In argumentation theory, an argumentum ad populum (Latin for "appeal to the people") is a fallacious argument that concludes that a proposition is true because many or most people believe it: "If many believe so, it is so.""

Nobody here has used argumentum ad populum.

Since you're misusing the term, you obviously don't understand its meaning.

> You just did. You just said that the more evidence there is (by different types), the more value they have. This does nothing to actually mention the content of the claim in question, only that there is different types/lots of it.

No, I didn't. This is about quality *and* quantity.

> I said that testimony isn't enough to convict

We're not in a court of law, so what is sufficient for a conviction in a court of law is irrelevant for our purposes.

Cumulative testimonial evidence can certainly be sufficient evidence as far as historiography is concerned, however, as I have already written, with the Holocaust it's the cumulative documentary, demographic, testimonial and physical evidence.

> At least you admit to dismissing the scientific method in terms of establishing truths grounded in reality.

History is not science, and you understand neither history, nor science.

> Just because a German wrote it doesn't make it true/false

Nobody claimed otherwise.

> Just because they stated figures doesn't mean it happened,

It does, until proven otherwise.

> where is the physical evidence for the figures they put forth?

Already answered above for the Holocaust in general. For BY the documentary and testimonial evidence is sufficient.

> Cannot replicate what they state, then you cannot prove guilt if the millions upon millions of dead are nowhere to be found.

Already answered: "The mass murder, burial and/or subsequent exhumation and incineration of most bodies has been proven beyond the reasonable doubt by the cumulative documentary, demographic, testimonial and physical evidence."

> You really are honest in admitting an aversion to substantiating the central theme raised by all of your evidence.

Already answered: "The mass murder, burial and/or subsequent exhumation and incineration of most bodies has been proven beyond the reasonable doubt by the cumulative documentary, demographic, testimonial and physical evidence."

> Everything points to the one thing that doesn't exist. Lots of documents referencing mass murder=/=proof of mass murder if you cannot find the graves of the millions dead.

Already answered: "The mass murder, burial and/or subsequent exhumation and incineration of most bodies has been proven beyond the reasonable doubt by the cumulative documentary, demographic, testimonial and physical evidence."

> The "black death issue" relates directly to your response

I'm not interested in the black death issue. Answer my *specific* questions:

"- the historicity of Julius Caesar and of his murder (we don't have the body to establish either);- Stalin's mass killings (we don't have the absolute majority of bodies and have to rely on documents and other evidence);

"Already answered: "Further investigation of mass graves or sites of incineration, though *recommended*, is not *necessary* for establishing the fact of the events, because the evidence adduced so far has been *sufficient*."

Note the emphasized "recommended": more information is always good; investigating graves adds information and is good.

However this has nothing to do with the already available evidence being sufficient."Not sufficient if the only evidence for the millions claim is "people saw it, they wrote of it happening". Where are the bodies? "It depends. If 10M were claimed to have been concentrated in 1 particular place and there is no evidence of body disposal - i.e. if the grave was claimed to have been isolated all along, then finding 1M instead of 10M does refute 10M. Basically because we are dealing with a "closed system".

The Holocaust mass graves are an "open system": there is sufficient evidence of attempted body disposal, hence we'll never be able to find all the bodies.

But we don't have to either, since the other evidence we do have is already sufficient in regard to the historicity of the events."How many bodies were disposed? Were all of the bodies disposed? If not, the difference is what remains among the grave sites. Nobody is saying it is uniformly distributed, that was an earlier hypothetical. What you find is what you find: add up all the bodies and compare them to the documents. "No, German wartime documents are sufficient evidence because they were written by the persons who were in a position to possess the information that we see in the documents"Genetic fallacy: is what is asserted by the document truthful or not. Doesn't matter who wrote them: is there evidence for the assertion or not."Not an argument."Generally, when I mention that phrase, I follow up with an argument explaining my reasoning. Otherwise, it's just an empty statement putting forward a proposal. I mentioned that replication of results is important in establishing truth grounded in reality. You say that it is not an argument because finding bodies is not actually important (but can't explain the Soviet mentality to exhume the dead in the first place...). You need to disprove the relevance of physical evidence in corroborating assertions raised by people/paper. Lots of people in a government may write of something and many people may claim to have seen it occur, but if you get upset when somebody claims to look into the 'x' in question, then that is an aversion towards evidence.

"Incorrect. I pointed out that it's not an appeal to majority. It isn't."Yes, it is. You are pointing to a group of people who have reached a consensus on an issue, which makes it truth. Not the case. Just because many people believe something happened does not make it truth."Nobody has mentioned general consensus."Then the testimony was not aligned towards reaching a point of convergence. "German wartime documents are primary source and sufficient evidence, and this has nothing to do with subjective opinions."Soviet officials send documents describing claims. Does not make it truthful. US sends budget reports and tell the public there is no debt issue. Doesn't make it truthful. Assess the content itself: where does the statement lead you to? Reading with your eyes leads you to the mass graves that are discussed/described."They do in some cases. For example, 800000 Jews were deported to Treblinka. Had they been moved further than Treblinka, there would have existed mountains of evidence for their survival of Treblinka. Since we don't find the *expected* mountains of evidence, they did not survive Treblinka."This presupposes that they died there. Just because they are no longer there doesn't mean that your specific method of extermination is verified. That is the definition of an argument from silence fallacy. Just because millions disappeared during the Soviet regime does not mean they were killed by the regime. Not an argument (notice the description, then the conclusion?)."Your comment stands in no recognizable relation to my comment."Suggest improving your reading comprehension, then."The courts have accepted the evidence of the Holocaust. Now that you are forced to admit this, you want to throw out the courts too."We can assess their verdict. Where do the documents lead us to? What is mentioned by the testimony? Let's follow up with it and investigate their claims.

> Threats are not arguments. You know I can just make another account, right? Moderation does not silence inquiry even if it hurts your feelings.

You've been warned.

> You're right, your genetic fallacies are irrelevant as they are not logical by any stretch of the imagination. It's irrelevant to even mention if the documents were German or not: what matters is the content of the claim.

Already answered: "No, German wartime documents are sufficient evidence because they were written by the persons who were in a position to possess the information that we see in the documents. If e.g. an Einsatzgruppe says that it killed 30K+ Jews in Kiev, it is prima facie a credible statement unless proven otherwise."

> Where are the millions upon millions who are claimed to have died?

Where they are supposed to be.

> Then all your death tolls are estimations not backed by physical evidence.

Like most other mega-murder tolls. Which is irrelevant to the topic of their historicity.

> I said Rob said you said it, not me.

You claimed I said it. I don't know who "Rob" is, but if you mean Roberto, I'm pretty sure he said no such thing.

> Appealing to a general consensus is not equivalent to truth.

Nobody here has claimed otherwise.

> Any document written is not truthful, by default.

Nobody here has claimed otherwise.

> You must assess the content of the claim in question: i.e., how many bodies were found?

The question is irrelevant to the issue of historicity if other sufficient evidence has been presented.

> The first part cannot be claimed until it is found.

Not an argument.

> How do you know it is in the ground

Because we have sufficient evidence for this assertion.

> The rest is not evidence because it cannot even be found.

Not an argument.

> Including "well, some are in the ground, so that means they died" is unfalsifiable because we cannot prove you wrong,

You can, theoretically, prove the Holocaust or its specific events are wrong. I have described how. You obviously don't understand what unfalsifiable is.

> There is no evidence for the claim.

There is sufficient cumulative documentary, demographic, testimonial and physical evidence.

> Insisting on German documents when you berate Graf for doing the same towards alleged Soviet documents is a genetic fallacy: content over source.

What you wrote is not meaningful. Who berates Graf for what Soviet documents?

> Not very convincing. How many bodies were exhumed?

Question has no relevance to the issue of historicity.

> Do you admit to no physical evidence proving the millions death toll?

There is no physical evidence proving Stalin's megadeath toll. So?

> Argument from silence fallacy, appeal to general consensus, already admitted there is no physical evidence for the millions claim (only what you find, which is thousands), documents' sources do not prove the content (or that it is just an assertion).

No argument from silence, no appeal to general consensus, no relevance of physical evidence in presence of other sufficient evidence, German wartime documents are sufficient evidence.

"Now that you know that the Holocaust has been proven in courts (among other places), you're forced to backpedal on the acceptance of courts as the golden standard of truth-seeking."The entire purpose is to assess the verdict. I suggest going back and rereading the posts that lead us to this point. "Already answered: "The mass murder, burial and/or subsequent exhumation and incineration of most bodies has been proven beyond the reasonable doubt by the cumulative documentary, demographic, testimonial and physical evidence.""General consensus is not truthful, by default. Documents referencing graves, but no proof of mass graves containing millions, means the documents are not truthful, not the other way around. Physical evidence? Great, so how many bodies were found."A statement of fact."Presupposing the conclusion, then working backwards. You really dislike the scientific method: first replicating results, now this."Nobody here has used argumentum ad populum.

Since you're misusing the term, you obviously don't understand its meaning."Then there is no cumulative result of the testimony because nobody believes what they are stating."No, I didn't. This is about quality *and* quantity."Reread your post. You valued lots of different types of testimony over the validity of the testimony. Just one tier of evidence is fine. If somebody claims something, meh let's not bother to look into the origin of their claim. "We're not in a court of law, so what is sufficient for a conviction in a court of law is irrelevant for our purposes.

Cumulative testimonial evidence can certainly be sufficient evidence as far as historiography is concerned, however, as I have already written, with the Holocaust it's the cumulative documentary, demographic, testimonial and physical evidence."For starters, if you can only find thousands, not millions, then your claim is not truthful (because Nazis did not destroy everything). "History is not science, and you understand neither history, nor science."Given the aversion towards evidence, yes it is not a science when it's your version of history. Also, just making catchy one-liners isn't really an argument. Have I dismissed the concept of replicating your results to do away with flukes? Have I dismissed following up with documents to see if the content of the claim matches the evidence for the claim? Seems like you accuse me of what you are guilty of."Nobody claimed otherwise."Then it might as well be a British document: none of that matters. What matters is seeing if the content of the documents matches the evidence for the claim.

>> That still assumes the documents are self-evident and outside of follow-up investigations

In the exchanges you've had with me, you are the one who is looking for "self-evident" sources: something that says "body count - x" and supposedly answers all questions.

>> Funny how you dismiss the emotional claim, but then go on to use all caps.

I used all caps because I had two important questions for you which I didn’t want to get lost in the comments here which are hard to read and hard to follow. There’s nothing emotional about this at all.

>> If the testimony of the entire planet converges to a single point, especially given the sample size and language barriers removing the capability of forgery/establishing independent claims, that still does not make the point that is reached truth, by default. If everybody claims 'x' and it is gathered as I described, that doesn't mean 'x' exists: you have only established a general consensus on the alleged existence of 'x'.

I didn’t write about testimony converging to a single point but different evidence types.

>> The 100k figure was just put forth by you and we have established that as truth, because the investigation into the graves found the physical information corroborating the documents and testimony.

No, I cited one source because you said that no such sources exist. I don’t view a single source as establishing “truth.”

>> So you came from here to the skeptic community?

Well, in the sense that I was here first, sure. But I came here from my friggin’ study.

>> Not sure what you mean. It's not really abstract, by definition.

You are being abstract in that you won’t deal with actual evidence but keep making theoretical points, poorly expressed but theoretical nonetheless. Here again, I ask you to explain the variety of evidence about Ponary and do you? No.

>> We found 100k, which was lowered after the fact. Let's build our way up to converge on the death toll. Should pass at least two million, as the Nazis did not cover everything up.

I have no idea what you are talking about. What was lowered by whom when? 2 million at Ponary? No, hardly.

You seem to have no awareness of this topic or field.

>> The range of evidence is documents and testimony referencing graves that, when mentioned, everybody gets upset at because the central theme the pieces of evidence are related to is not actually a part of the discussion, even though the documents are.

I am not upset and certainly not by mentions of mass graves. I can’t decipher the rest of this statement. As Sergey told you, there is abundant and sufficient evidence to establish what happened at Ponary - and now you again refuse to engage with it trying to bury discussion of the evidence in a blizzard of abstract, theoretical speculation.

"It does, until proven otherwise."Shifting the burden of proof. You are presupposing that it is valid before putting for your evidence. You admit to just taking the documents at face value and not even following up with the claims. You're asking me to disprove Russel's teapot. Where is your evidence that it is legitimate backed by the evidence FOR the graves themselves?"Already answered above for the Holocaust in general. For BY the documentary and testimonial evidence is sufficient."How many bodies were exhumed again? How many are claimed?"It is."See above."Nobody here has appealed to a general consensus."So the testimony is does not converge towards one conclusion (i.e. Holocaust happened). You are admitting the natural pitfall of your testimonial claims."Already answered: "The mass murder, burial and/or subsequent exhumation and incineration of most bodies has been proven beyond the reasonable doubt by the cumulative documentary, demographic, testimonial and physical evidence.""How many bodies were exhumed again? How many are claimed?"Already answered: "The mass murder, burial and/or subsequent exhumation and incineration of most bodies has been proven beyond the reasonable doubt by the cumulative documentary, demographic, testimonial and physical evidence.""See above."I'm not interested in the black death issue. Answer my *specific* questions:"That isn't the black death issue exclusively. If you read it, you would know. "You've been warned."Threats are not arguments, just threatening people because your feelings are hurt or because they are asking for your evidence is not really indicative of intellectual honesty in a debate. Nor is ad-homs from Nathan or ganging up six on one, but at this point, intellectual honesty is a far shot."Already answered: "No, German wartime documents are sufficient evidence because they were written by the persons who were in a position to possess the information that we see in the documents. If e.g. an Einsatzgruppe says that it killed 30K+ Jews in Kiev, it is prima facie a credible statement unless proven otherwise.""Source does not decide truth, content does."Where they are supposed to be."That's on your shoulders to prove, you're the one claiming millions died."Like most other mega-murder tolls."Estimations are not accurate.

"You claimed I said it. I don't know who "Rob" is, but if you mean Roberto, I'm pretty sure he said no such thing."yeah, rob. Check the other thread we are discussing in before he shut it down, he says you said it. "Nobody here has claimed otherwise."Great, so your testimony is invalid because there is not a consensus on what is accepted.Differing results aren't indicative of a common theme."Nobody here has claimed otherwise."So on what basis can we know the documents' claims are valid? Where is the evidence for it? We can't just assume they are valid and ask others to prove us wrong... oh wait..."The question is irrelevant to the issue of historicity if other sufficient evidence has been presented."How many bodies are exhumed? How many are claimed?"Not an argument."Notice how I put effort into my posts and describe your fallacious line of reasoning before arriving at the conclusion? "You can, theoretically, prove the Holocaust or its specific events are wrong. I have described how. You obviously don't understand what unfalsifiable is."It doesn't matter if the documents were plagiarized (forgeries) or if they came from source y instead of x: what matters is if there is evidence for the assertions made."There is sufficient cumulative documentary, demographic, testimonial and physical evidence."How many bodies are exhumed? How many are claimed?"What you wrote is not meaningful. Who berates Graf for what Soviet documents?"This blogpost because Graf lied about Soviet intervention, as if the source matters."There is no physical evidence proving Stalin's megadeath toll. So?"Then the absence of evidence does not equate to the presence of evidence to make outlandish claims that aren't corroborated by fact.

@ Joseph, I am done here, this is too hard for me to follow in this format.

I've participated in a discussion of Einsatzgruppen and other mass murder here http://www.skepticforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=39&t=25822.

The Holocaust deniers writing in that discussion surely could use some help. If you want to continue the discussion, that's a place to do so. Blogger comments don't work well for this sort of discussion. At least for me they're too much work.

> Not sufficient if the only evidence for the millions claim is "people saw it, they wrote of it happening". Where are the bodies?

Incorrect, the available evidence is fully sufficient. Bodies are where they are supposed to be.

> How many bodies were disposed?

It's irrelevant to the issue of historicity already having been established based on sufficient evidence.

> Were all of the bodies disposed?

Obviously not.

> If not, the difference is what remains among the grave sites.

Sure.

And if you dig the whole European terrain and find no bodies where they are supposed to be (that is, if we know that at these particular spots there were no body disposal attempts), and maybe even find virgin soil, then you have disproved the mass graves and cast doubt on the Holocaust as a whole.

On the other hand, not being able to show the bodies not because somebody has excavated and found none in the places where they were supposed to be, but rather because no excavation has been undertaken (let's forget the Soviet and later attempts for a sec) for whatever reasons, then this disproves exactly nothing.

In the first case you have positively proved absence of the bodies (where they were supposed to be).

In the second case you simply have absence of evidence which is not evidence of absence. Since there is *other* evidence, which is sufficient, we can still make truth-claims.

> Genetic fallacy: is what is asserted by the document truthful or not. Doesn't matter who wrote them: is there evidence for the assertion or not.

Sure, the German wartime documents are the evidence.

That you claim that it doesn't matter who wrote them shows that you don't know anything about historiography or common sense.

> Generally, when I mention that phrase, I follow up with an argument explaining my reasoning.

Not true. You just thrown in some terms whose meaning you don't understand.

Moreover, you have not attempted to substantiate the claims to which I replied with "Not an argument", so I didn't have to provide further reasoning.

> I mentioned that replication of results is important in establishing truth grounded in reality.

Replication has nothing to do with truth. You can't replicate Julius Caesar or Stalin's mass murders.

> You say that it is not an argument because finding bodies is not actually important

I never said that.

> You need to disprove the relevance of physical evidence in corroborating assertions raised by people/paper.

I don't. You never tried to substantiate you claim.

> then that is an aversion towards evidence.

Since the evidence is voluminous and sufficient, you obviously have an aversion to evidence since you reject it.

> Yes, it is. You are pointing to a group of people who have reached a consensus on an issue, which makes it truth.

Nope, did no such thing.

> Just because many people believe something happened does not make it truth.

Nobody claimed otherwise. A strawman argument fallacy.

> Then the testimony was not aligned towards reaching a point of convergence.

Testimony has nothing to do with consensus.

> Soviet officials send documents describing claims. Does not make it truthful.

Actually it does if they're internal secret documents. That's how we know about Stalin's crimes.

> US sends budget reports and tell the public there is no debt issue.

You're confusing documents for public consumption with secret internal documents.

> This presupposes that they died there.

This *proves* that they died there.

> Just because they are no longer there doesn't mean that your specific method of extermination is verified.

Nobody said anything about a specific method of extermination. Only that they were murdered there.

> That is the definition of an argument from silence fallacy.

There is no argument from silence when silence is unexpected. You obviously don't understand what argument from silence means.

> Just because millions disappeared during the Soviet regime does not mean they were killed by the regime.

Incorrect analogy. When 800000's people's documented lives end in Treblinka, and we would expect their lives to be further documented had they left Treblinka, it logically follows that their lives ended in Treblinka.

> Suggest improving your reading comprehension, then.

Suggest stopping writing on drugs then.

> We can assess their verdict. Where do the documents lead us to? What is mentioned by the testimony? Let's follow up with it and investigate their claims.

Too bad you have already accepted the court methodology as the golden standard of truth-seeking.

"In the exchanges you've had with me, you are the one who is looking for "self-evident" sources: something that says "body count - x" and supposedly answers all questions."No, I'm looking for a document that asserts 'x' died and an investigation proving it to be truthful (finding 'x')."I used all caps because I had two important questions for you which I didn’t want to get lost in the comments here which are hard to read and hard to follow. There’s nothing emotional about this at all."The only other time caps were used was when Nathan had to emphasis his insults. Caps are indicative of yelling a point. "I didn’t write about testimony converging to a single point but different evidence types. "Conflicting testimony isn't indicative of a truthful event."No, I cited one source because you said that no such sources exist. I don’t view a single source as establishing “truth.”"We can take it at face value and state, for now, that 100k have been confirmed dead by the content of the citation. So that's what we claim."Well, in the sense that I was here first, sure. But I came here from my friggin’ study."okay."You are being abstract in that you won’t deal with actual evidence but keep making theoretical points, poorly expressed but theoretical nonetheless. Here again, I ask you to explain the variety of evidence about Ponary and do you? No. "I have no use to even type a response as you feel the need to answer for me. How intellectually honest! I ask again, how many were exhumed, how many are claimed to have been killed? This is the part where I wait for your response, not fill in what I want you to say."I have no idea what you are talking about. What was lowered by whom when? 2 million at Ponary? No, hardly.

You seem to have no awareness of this topic or field."Appeal to authority. The humble opinion of a single individual outweighs the authority of one thousand. Not speaking of the one instance. If at least 'x' died and 2/3 remain, we expect around 2/3x."I am not upset and certainly not by mentions of mass graves. I can’t decipher the rest of this statement. As Sergey told you, there is abundant and sufficient evidence to establish what happened at Ponary - and now you again refuse to engage with it trying to bury discussion of the evidence in a blizzard of abstract, theoretical speculation."The words I state exist, there is nothing abstract about them. They aren't "theories" or deal with theoretical instances as that presupposes the conclusion to begin with. I am asking for your evidence: how many bodies were exhumed, how many are claimed to have been killed? "I am not emotional period. I am actually in awe of your ability to repeat empty and reassuring nonsense."Awe is an emotion.

LJoseph: "This blogpost because Graf lied about Soviet intervention, as if the source matters."

The blog post by Sergey above this comments thread mentioned nothing about the Soviets, it pointed out that Graf falsely asserted that there are no contemporary (wartime) German documents referencing Aktion 1005.

"Incorrect, the available evidence is fully sufficient. Bodies are where they are supposed to be."How many were exhumed, then? We're doing lazy one sentences, so I'll follow suit."It's irrelevant to the issue of historicity already having been established based on sufficient evidence."So where are the bodies? Documents referencing mass graves, testimony referencing mass graves=meh, graves aren't important anymore."Obviously not"So a non-zero figure exists to be analyzed."And if you dig the whole European terrain and find no bodies where they are supposed to be (that is, if we know that at these particular spots there were no body disposal attempts), and maybe even find virgin soil, then you have disproved the mass graves and cast doubt on the Holocaust as a whole."You first have to find the corpses to substantiate the death toll, then work to "refute" it. You love to work backwards from a conclusion, huh."In the second case you simply have absence of evidence which is not evidence of absence. Since there is *other* evidence, which is sufficient, we can still make truth-claims."How many bodies were exhumed, how many are claimed? "Sure, the German wartime documents are the evidence.

That you claim that it doesn't matter who wrote them shows that you don't know anything about historiography or common sense."Yeah, trying to avoid genetic fallacies. Common sense is not as common as you think it is..."Replication has nothing to do with truth. You can't replicate Julius Caesar or Stalin's mass murders."Anti-intellectualism at its finest. "I never said that."Its relevance is related to the topic at hand. Otherwise the documents asserting its existence are not relevant, either."I don't. You never tried to substantiate you claim."Burden of proof is on your shoulders."Since the evidence is voluminous and sufficient, you obviously have an aversion to evidence since you reject it."Quantity is not over quality, so the volume is irrelevant. Pot calling the kettle black, you can't even source how many were killed beyond arguments from silence.

"Testimony has nothing to do with consensus."Conflicting testimony sure is compelling."There is no argument from silence when silence is unexpected. You obviously don't understand what argument from silence means."It is precisely leaving it up to "wow, they aren't here anymore (indicating surprise), ergo they were 'x'" that is fallacious. You obviously don't understand what argument from silence means."Incorrect analogy. When 800000's people's documented lives end in Treblinka, and we would expect their lives to be further documented had they left Treblinka, it logically follows that their lives ended in Treblinka."When one million people were living before a starvation, it would logically follow that they died in the starvation. Not an argument as that is operating independently of any investigation into the assertion to see if that happened or not."Suggest stopping writing on drugs then."Not an argument as you have no proof that I am a substance abuser, but you are incapable of brining yourself to read my analogies because you want me to retype them for you, like assuming my black death analogy was only exclusively about black death. I can ask for your evidence, but, like your conspiracies, you present none."Too bad you have already accepted the court methodology as the golden standard of truth-seeking."It really does seem that you don't know what a rhetorical statement is. Adding on your reading comprehension skills, expanding your vocabulary wouldn't hurt, either.Deliberate obfuscation to make a point only illustrates your own aversion to actual evidence. I can just claim you're a drug addict, but there is no evidence for it. Oh wait, lots of people say you use drugs (which is now truthful) and there are emails you sent to a drug dealer. I guess we don't have to test your bloodstream for a drug test, nah that's not related.200 posts in and still not a single citation outside of the mech guy who proved 100k so far and my source of the Romanian bone fragments.